Rats in a Barrel
by Sharkey52
Summary: With the Interdimensional War over, seventeen people gather to celebrate their friend's birthday in Standard. But when this lighthearted celebration turns into more of a murder mystery, everyone finds themselves fighting for their lives. But is the enemy among them?
1. Prologue

**Wow, well, this is quite a bit different from what I usually write. I know you were all expecting a comedy fic, but this idea has been running around my head for a while and I want to put it to paper (or pixel in this case). I don't think it will take too long for me to finish this though - it shouldn't take much more than a week if I release a chapter every day. Then you can all have your comedy fics back. Until then you get a murder mystery.**

 **One last thing is that this story is within the Arc-V universe, the one split into four different dimensions. This story is set about a year after the events of Arc-V conclude, in Standard Dimension, but not in Maiami City.**

* * *

 **Prologue**

I sat in fear as I stared down the blood-stained carpet in front of me, the nasty smirks on their faces sending shivers down my spine. My blood was cold as ice. I could hardly even tell there were tears streaming down my face, mixing with the blood splattered on my cheeks.

It wasn't even my blood. It was the blood of the person who had just tried to save me from these two. I was now the only survivor. They had killed everyone else.

I couldn't wrap my head around how any of this could have happened. Was this all just some horrible nightmare? I wanted to believe that. Oh, how I wanted to believe that.

I had just watched my friend get murdered right in front of me. The rest of my friends' bodies were scattered all over the house.

And these two…who I thought were my friends…had slaughtered them all. And for what? Was there even a reason for any of this?

"W-Why…" I barely managed to speak. "Why did…you do…this…?"

One of their smirks had only gotten wider. If they were going to kill me, there probably was no reason for them to even tell me why they had done the awful things they had done that night…if it was even still night or if morning had finally come, I wasn't sure.

But one of them decided to speak up.

"Would you really like to know? Why don't I tell you…"

I sat in horror and confusion as I listened to their so-called explanation. After a while of not really wanting to comprehend any of it, I decided to remember all of the night's events that led up to this horrible tragedy…


	2. Birthday

**Birthday**

"Wow, this is Sawatari's house?" Yuya gaped, gazing in awe at the huge mansion in front of him "This is incredible!"

"Now that's what I call a winter retreat!" Yuzu remarked, her eyes just as wide as she took in the four story building.

"Yuya, this is a mansion, not a house" Gongenzaka corrected Yuya, seeming unimpressed with the impressive show of money "Besides, what made you think he would be subtle about his 16th birthday party? Of course he's showing off his family's money."

"Oh come on, Noburu!" Yuya flailed his arms "You know what I meant! It's all the same!"

"Well, technically, it is not. A house is—Ow!" Gongenzaka cried out after being smacked on the arm by Yuzu's fan.

Yuzu giggled behind the boys "You guys are ridiculous! Gosh, I hope I'm not underdressed!"

She glanced at her short pink skirt that she usually liked to wear. Because of the cold, she was also wearing white leggings and boots.

"You look fine, Yuzu!" Yuya hurriedly assured her, straightening out his white jacket "You look fancier than I do!"

"I really don't think Sawatari will mind" Gongenzaka pointed out "If he invited Kurosaki and Allen."

"Yeah, that's right!" Yuya grinned in a very loud tone, wiping some hair off of his jacket "We'll be fine!"

He slapped a hand on Yuzu's shoulder, making her giggle and dart away from him, almost crashing into a potted plant.

"Yuzu, you might want to be careful where you're walking" Gongenzaka warned, eyeing the potted plant with worry "We don't want to break anything in here and you've almost destroyed three flowerpots just on the way to the front door. No doubt Sawatari will make us pay for anything you break."

"Noburu! Can we do anything else to please you?!" Yuzu complained.

Yuya laughed while Gongenzaka sighed, resigned to his fate.

"We're here for a birthday party, Noburu!" Yuzu laughed as well "Lighten up!"

"Can we go inside?" Gongenzaka shivered "It is cold."

"Sure, let's go!" Yuya and Yuzu charged ahead, eager to check out the inside of this mansion.

Yuzu couldn't believe that Sawataris' owned what had to be the coolest house on this dimension and Sawatari invited them all to celebrate his 16th birthday and a be-latted Christmas, because Sawatari's birthday was the day after Boxing Day. In Yuya's words: way cool!

But little did she know that this night would change their lives forever…

* * *

"Yugo, look out!" Rin yelled, reaching her hand out in a poor effort to prevent him from crashing into the glass case behind him.

"Whoa!" Yugo spun around quickly, catching himself before he hit the case full of antiques "I'm fine!"

"Yugo, please, be careful!" Rin began to scold him "Sawatari was nice enough to invite us! The least you could do is try to be courteous of his property!"

"Sorry" Yugo scratched the back of his head, looking down in shame.

"Just please try and be careful. Why don't you go an unpack your things?" she suggested. Yugo brightened up.

"Okay!" he grinned, racing out of the main room into to foyer towards the huge stairs that led up to the bedrooms.

Rin sighed and walked across the foyer into the large, spacious living room where most of the other guests were currently socialising together.

She glanced around the room, beginning to count who all was here but gave up when she realised that there were a few people missing. Ruri, Sayaka, Yuya and Yuzu were conversing happily near the fireplace. Reira was playing Go Fish with Yuto, Shun, and Gongenzaka. Reiji was watching over them, helping Reira out now and again since he wasn't too familiar with the game.

"Allen, Yuri, Dennis, Serena, Sora, Masumi, Hokuto and Yaiba aren't here" she realised.

"Allen is" Sawatari corrected her, leaning against the wall "He's in the bathroom. And Masumi, Yaiba and Hokuto can't make it – they just called."

Rin gave Sawatari a funny look. "I'm disturbed that you knew that Allen was in the bathroom."

"Hey, Rin!" Yuto called to her, waving "We're playing another round. Want to join in?"

Rin decided to join the cards-playing group while Yugo emerged from the foyer and tackle-hugged Yuzu, causing him to be abruptly smacked by a paper fan and everyone to burst out laughing; even Shun and Reiji's lips twitched in amusement.

Yuya turned his head and stared out the large window in the room. "It's snowing outside!"

A few people in the room smiled at the announcement of snow. Sayaka and Yugo jumped up and ran over to the window, plastering their faces on the cold, glass surface.

"I haven't seen snow in so long!" Sayaka's eyes were wide with amazement behind her glasses "It just kinda rain in Heartland in the winter."

"Wow, looks like it's going to be bad out there!" Sawatari remarked "We're probably all going to be snowed in tomorrow!"

It was at this point Sayaka and Yugo noticed a group of people walking up to the mansion.

"Hey, the fusionists are here!" Yugo shouted, causing some people to cover their ears and everyone to scramble to the door to greet them.

"Welcome to the coolest party of the century!" Sawatari threw the door opened and yelled "Man, the temperature dropped fast! It's freezing out here! Serena, you have to be freezing your butt off!"

"Shut up" Yuri barked, pushing past him and into the house "It's freezing out here. Whose idea was it to hold a damn birthday party in the middle of the tundra!"

"It _is_ a little chilly" Serena shivered in her short red dress "But it's fine. We're going to be in the mansion. We're not partying outside, are we?"

"No, we're not" Sawatari reassured her "Welcome guys!"

"Hey loser!" was Sora's standard greeting, twirling a lollipop in his mouth. "You better have candy."

"Happy birthday, Sawatari" Serena said, with a touch of both fondness and irritation.

"We got you a present!" Dennis grinned, holding out a large present that was probably from all four of them. No one would put it past them to give him a giant jack-in-the-box as some sort of prank. "16 huh? Tell me there's cake. Preferably a caterpillar one. I like the caterpillar ones but Yuri doesn't like chocolate so he won't let me get one."

"Infidel" Sora murmured under his breath, probably towards Yuri, as the group gravitated back to the living room. Yuri himself had taken a seat on the far end of the sofa, folding his legs and hands and looking generally like he didn't want to be there.

"Hey Yuri!" Yuya greeted him "How's the Fusion Dimension?"

"A damn mess, no thanks to you" Yuri scoffed, not quite managing to glare at Yuya.

"It's getting better" Dennis reassured everyone who shifted awkwardly "I mean, the rebuilding's going well. We finally got the stains out of the walls that survived."

"Yah!" Allen randomly barged into the room, hoping to scare someone. He succeeded in making Yuzu, Ruri and Reira jump. "Hey guys! I heard the fusionists arrived." He grinned, fixing the hat he was wearing on his head "Dinner's ready! The table's being set now!"

"Alright then!" Sawatari clapped his hands together, several people fixing him with looks of ire "Let's settled into the dining room! I'm starving!"

That they couldn't disagree with.

The group spent the next few minutes pouring into the spacious and luxurious dining room. The dinner table was so incredibly long it could probably fit up to thirty people, plenty of room for all of the guests and then some. Everyone found a seat up towards the front of the room, leaving most of the back seats empty so that they weren't so spread apart.

Plates of food had been placed all along the table. Many in the group were gazing at the food in awe, surprised at how delicious it all looked. Yuya and Sora, both of them with mouths watering, tried to reach for whatever was in front of them before Yuzu dragged them back.

"I'm surprised Yugo isn't trying to attack the food" Serena joked, poking fun at the boy sitting next to her.

"That's because Rin made sure I ate before I got here" Yugo smiled innocently as Serena rolled her eyes "I could still go for more, but I can wait."

"Well you don't have to wait anymore!" Sawatari declared "Let's dig in already!"

"Woo-hoo!" Sora cheered, surging forward for the food, startling Reira who had tried to go for the same chicken drum as he had.

"See, I'm not that bad!" Yuya said to Gongenzaka and Yuzu in an in-your-face sort of manner, both of them sighing resignedly.

"Hey! Hey, everyone! Before we eat, let's say it together?" Ruri 'whispered', trying to be conspicuous but everyone could hear her. Sawatari knew that was the intention and grinned at what came next.

"One…two…three!"

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY SAWATARI!"

"HAPPY B-DAY LOSER!"


	3. Missing

**Missing**

After everyone had their fill of dinner (it was kind of surprising that there was any food left, considering how many plates some of the boys had - "Sora, give Yuto that chicken wing! You've already had twelve!"), the group decided to gather in the main room, where there was an astounding amount of presents to the side of the sofa, which caused many to gasp.

"Sawatari!" Allen gaped at the presents "How many people do you know?!"

"Just some from some old friends in LDS, and some people from Synchro sent some. Funny, for people who claim to be poor they sure can be generous when it comes to gift-giving" Sawatari mumbled that last part, scratching his head "But then there's all of you guys."

Truth be told, Yuri and Shun had been a little more reluctant to give presents for their own reasons, and had been forced to get something by the females of their groups.

"Are any of these presents are for us?" Yuya pointed to himself. This was also supposed to be a be-latted Christmas party after all.

"Yuya! It's Sawatari's birthday!" Yuzu slapped him on the arm with her paper fan. He frowned and rubbed his arm.

"Well, it's not my fault his birthday is like two freaking days after Christmas!" Yuya protested.

"Well, sorry to inconvenience you, Yuya" Sawatari replied sourly, completely insincerely.

"Oh, it's no problem, Sawatari" Yuya remarked sarcastically, their rivalry starting to heat up right there in the middle of the main room "Only that—Oww!" Yuzu hit him again. "Yuzu! That was not necessary!"

"It sure was!" Yuzu retorted "Now will you shut up so that Sawatari can open his presents!"

"Before we do all of that, do you mind if we go to our rooms?" Sayaka asked politely "I'd like to unpack my stuff, just in case I needed to get something quickly so I know where everything is."

"Sure" Sawatari shrugged "You've all got your own rooms."

"That's good" Sora muttered, folding his arms "Because I am never sharing a room with Yuya again."

Yuya frowned at him, wondering what he had done to make so many people hate him.

"It's late, I think Reira needs to take a nap" Reiji also supplied.

It was true, Reira appeared to be dozing off on his feet; Reiji had a supporting hand on his shoulder so he wouldn't fall over.

"Alright, alright!" Sawatari couldn't help but feel a little overburdened with all the requests. "We'll be doing more fun stuff in the morning anyway."

Everyone except Gongenzaka, Allen and Yuto left the room. Slowly, people began returning to the main room. Shun was first, followed by Serena and Sayaka. Dennis and Sora were next, and then Yuri.

After about twenty minutes, no one else had shown up.

"Where's everyone else?" Sora asked, impatiently "Birthday Boy is still missing."

"I only know where Reiji went" Dennis shrugged "I'm pretty sure he's still with Reira, telling a bedtime story or something. I'm not sure where the others are."

Sawatari then walked into the room, wiping his hands on a handkerchief. "Sorry I'm late."

"Loser!" Sora demanded, pointing accusingly at him "Where's Yuya, Kurosaki's sister, Scarf McGee, the seven-year-old child and the Synchro idiots?!"

"They're not back yet?" Sawatari blinked. "I just went to the bathroom. Yugo said he'd meet me down here. I'm not sure where the others are."

"That's weird" Allen scratched his head "Maybe they got lost?"

"I could see Yuya doing that…" Yuzu sighed.

Just then, Rin, Yugo and Yuya entered the room.

"Wow, about time!" Dennis joked.

"Yeah, Yuya!" Yuzu made a face like she was very angry with only him, but was smiling "Nice of you to hold all of us up! I'm sure you're the one who got you guys lost!"

Yuya didn't respond, only staring straight ahead. Yuzu's smile diminished.

"Yuya? What's wrong with you? You look like you've just seen a ghost" Gongenzaka walked over to him. He placed a hand on his shoulder but Yuya only shivered, looking straight through him.

"I think he got sick or something" Rin told them "He was in the bathroom for a while."

"Do you just want to stay in your room?" Yuto offered.

Yuya slowly shook his head. Gongenzaka decided to help sit him on the sofa. Yuzu sat down also so Yuya could rest his head on her lap. She gently ruffled Yuya's hair, but instead of perking up like usual, his eyes remained half-lidded and dull.

"Yuri" Serena turned to face the one leaning against the wall "Get Yuya some water."

Yuri raised an eyebrow at this.

"Why should I?" he challenged.

Serena narrowed her eyes, striding over to him. Everyone got out the way and Shun moved away from where he was leaning against the wall near to where Yuri was sitting.

"Because I say so" was all Serena said, getting in his personal space.

It was all she needed to say.

Yuri looked the tiniest bit uneasy, which was a major feat. If Yuya was fully awake right now, he'd probably be laughing. Dennis did actually laugh, receiving an unimpressed glare for his effort.

"Fine! Fine! Whatever! I'll get Yuya his precious water!" Yuri stood up and held his hands in the air in surrender before storming off toward the kitchen.

Yugo cleared his throat. "Can Sawatari open his presents now?"

Really he just wanted his late Christmas presents as soon as possible.

Sawatari agreed, there was no point in waiting for the others – they would show up in time. "Sure, that okay with you, Kurosaki?"

He wanted to check, in case Shun got upset that they were starting without his little sister. Sawatari had been on the receiving end of the older boy's temper far too often not to check first.

Shun shrugged. He didn't particularly care about Sawatari opening his presents. If need be, he and Ruri could open their Christmas presents together later, privately instead of in front of an audience. He wasn't at all worried she hadn't shown up yet. They were in an isolated house in Standard after all. Maybe she was just feeling shy and decided to stay in her room.

The birthday boy spent the next half an hour slowly opening his birthday presents, grinning like an idiot at most of them and one time actually jumping to his feet and giving Yuto a hug that was returned after a jump of surprise.

Yuya had drank half of the ice cold water Yuri had rather begrudgingly gotten for him and was lying on the couch, holding his sweaty forehead with his eyes wide open. Yuzu would have just thought that maybe he ate too much, but why did he continue to stare at nothing instead of just rest?

Ruri, Reiji and Reira hadn't returned, either.

* * *

"Something's wrong."

It was getting close to midnight. Everyone was beginning to get tired and progressively excusing themselves from the main room. Yuto, Yugo and Dennis left first, helping Sawatari carry all his presents back to his own room, followed by Rin and Shun, then later Yuri. Sayaka had told the group she was going to check on the Akabas and Ruri. Allen and Sora left together.

The remaining group – Gongenzaka, Yuzu, Yuya and Serena – were left to converse, save for Yuya who still wasn't talking for some reason. His eyes had finally closed, though, but he was drenched in sweat.

Gongenzaka had voiced his thoughts about feeling that something was wrong. The girls had nodded their heads.

"Yuya didn't really seem like he was sick" Serena commented "He seemed like he was shocked about something. Very shocked."

"Yes" Gongenzaka nodded "I've taken care of him before when he was sick. He's never acted like this before."

"I was just joking about him being lost" Yuzu frowned "I wonder what took them so long to come downstairs?"

"That's what I'm wondering" Gongenzaka's eyes darted towards the ceiling "I think something is very wrong."

"Like what?" Serena asked.

"I'm not sure" Gongenzaka shrugged "I just have a bad feeling about something."

Serena was about to say something again, but at that moment, her phone started ringing. Frowning at the ID number, she answered it. "Dennis, I know it's a big house, but do you really need to waste my free calls?"

"Serena, we've got a bit of a problem" She was surprised by worry in Dennis' usually light-hearted tone.

"Like what, Xyz Dimension being destroyed again problem or Yuri threw Sora's gobstoppers away problem?" she asked.

"Well, Sayaka kinda went to Reira's room and says Reiji's in there but not Ruri" Dennis explained "We have absolutely no idea where she is and Kurosaki's kinda freaking out so I'm hiding in the bathroom so he can't get me."

"What?!" Yuzu and Serena shared glances as Serena unintentionally yelled out. Then she yelled back "Where's Sayaka then?!"

"I don't know, she left the room as soon as I said I hadn't see Ruri" he supplied

"Okay, well, I'm going to look for her" Serena told him "Go and let everyone else know, alright?"

"You mean, I have to leave the bathroom?" Dennis didn't see pleased with this suggestion.

Serena rolled her eyes. "Yes, Dennis, I'm sure Kurosaki isn't _actually_ going to kill you."

"When they find my dead body, you're the one who's going to have to tell Yuri" Dennis warned her.

"Yeah, whatever, bye Dennis" Serena hung up.

"What was that about?" Yuzu raised an eyebrow, not catching what was going on.

"Ruri's missing" Serena briefed.

"What?" Yuzu gasped.

Gongenzaka raised an eyebrow. "How do you go missing in here of all places?"

"Sayaka's looking for her now, but I'm going to help her" Serena explained.

"Me too" Gongenzaka stood up.

"I'll watch over Yuya" Yuzu offered. She didn't have much of a choice, with Yuya's head still on her lap. "In case he snaps out of it."

"Thanks" Serena nodded to her. She turned to Gongenzaka "Let's go!"

The two left the main room through the foyer and headed upstairs.

"Where are we going?" Gongenzaka asked as they continued running down the hallway.

Serena had insisted they run, but Gongenzaka was not the fastest person in the world so Serena had to keep slowing down to wait for him.

"Going to Ruri's room" Serena explained "She's staying on the same corridor as me, Yuzu, Sayaka and Rin. Say what you want about Sawatari, but at least he gave all the girls their own floor. If she didn't visit Reira, then she must be in her room."

"Would Sayaka not check her room?" Gongenzaka pointed out.

"Probably not" Serena replied "You know what she's like about peoples' personal privacy."

The duo stopped in front of Ruri's room. The door was closed.

"She might be in here" the lone female Lancer took a deep breath. For some reason, her heart was pounding. She felt something in the pit of her stomach, and she was sure it wasn't her dinner.

She knocked on the door. "Ruri? Are you in there?"

No response.

"Ruri?" Serena decided to slowly turn the doorknob and open the door.

She instantly regretted it once she saw what was inside.

On the floor, face down, lay Ruri. Her yellow dress was covered in blood, the back of it completely torn to show a huge gash.

Gongenzaka immediately flew to Ruri's side, picking up her left arm and checking for a pulse. His face tightened and he set down the girl's arm carefully.

"N-No good…" he said, sounding pained "She…she's dead."

Serena was shivering uncontrollably, her legs giving out on her. Now that feeling in the pit of her stomach was surely her dinner, ready to exit her body prematurely through her mouth.


	4. Mystery

**Mystery**

Sayaka was running around the mansion frantically, hoping to locate Ruri quickly. The second she realised Ruri wasn't keeping Reira company, she knew something was wrong. It had been too long since anyone had seen her. She wasn't the type to get lost. Even if something as big as this mansion was throwing her off, it still wouldn't take that long of a time for her to find the stairs and navigate her way back to the living room. The top two floors even looked exactly the same!

Sayaka wondered if maybe Ruri had gone to visit her brother in his room on the third floor, so she decided to head there. She had ascended the staircase from the first floor and when she reached the third floor, she heard an awful sound. Was somebody…vomiting?

She glanced over and began walking down the dark hallway until the vomiting noise got louder. She finally saw that Ruri's room had its light on, illuminating Serena puking into a waste-paper basket in the corridor.

"Oh my!" Sayaka rushed to the other girl's side, kneeling down to rub her back "Are you okay?"

Serena tried to shake her head, but in doing so came dangerously close to missing the waste-paper basket as dinner came up her throat again.

"Sayaka, is that you? Have you seen Ruri yet?" Sayaka looked over her shoulder to see Shun coming down the corridor the same way she had, staring at them.

"Sayaka, Kurosaki…" Serena forced out in a pained tone once she had finished this round of vomiting "You might not want to-"

"Serena? Is someone there?" Sayaka heard Gongenzaka call from inside Ruri's room. Why was _he_ in there?

Apparently Shun thought the same thing.

"What's going on in there?" Shun frowned, choosing to peek inside the room to see what he was doing.

"No, Kurosaki, don't—!" Gongenzaka yelled out, but it was too late.

Shun's eyes widened in horror at the sight before him. Then a pained wail filled the mansion.

* * *

"Ru-Ruri's _dead_?" Allen's voice rose two whole octaves as he spoke, his words causing everyone in the room to gasp and some to cover their faces in horror.

Shun's wail had summoned Dennis, who had been requested by Gongenzaka to gather everyone down in the main room. Gongenzaka had helped Serena downstairs, carrying the wastebasket with him. Sayaka, moving as if in a dream, as if this all wasn't real, was now rubbing her back while Rin was holding a glass of water for her. Shun had demanded to stay by Ruri's side once he'd calmed down to the point of being able to communicate properly, but Gongenzaka and Yuto refused to let him. Yuto spent several minutes trying to convince the still hysterical Shun to come downstairs and telling him staying next to her dead body wasn't going to fix anything. He had finally mutely nodded in agreement. Shun was now sitting on the sofa, just staring blankly at the wall, Yuto choosing to sit solemnly next to him so that he wasn't alone.

"I-I can't believe someone's dead…" Yuzu gasped, trying not to cry.

Yugo kept patting her back sporadically, as if he thought that may comfort her.

"And you said she was struck from behind?" Yuri asked, sounding worriedly interested "Struck, as in…?"

"A knife" Gongenzaka answered. "Or some sharp object. Her back was cut and she bled out."

"Oh my!" Sayaka covered her mouth, not taking to the details of what had happened to her best friend very well.

Others flinched at the description.

"So she was murdered" Sora concluded. He was sweating a bit, as if he expected everyone to turn on him for speaking. "She obviously couldn't have done that to herself, right?"

Everyone glanced around awkwardly, not sure how to respond.

"That means…that someone in this mansion had to have done it" Allen voiced something they didn't want to hear.

"Are you sure it someone didn't break in?" Yugo tried asking.

Gongenzaka shook his head. "Nothing in the room was broken or missing, as far as I could tell. But the room wasn't locked, so…"

"Ah!" Everyone turned to Sawatari who had just slammed the phone back down in its holder "I can't get a hold of my parents! They won't pick up!"

"Huh?" Dennis looked over his shoulder at the house phone "You can't?"

"No, obviously" Sawatari began punching in another number "I'll try calling the police station."

"Maybe there's a possibility that someone from outside was able to get in elsewhere and killed Ruri!" Sayaka squeaked.

"All of the windows and doors are locked up tight" Yuto shook his head "We would've felt a cold draft from the blizzard if a window had been opened or broken."

"Plus, like I said, I couldn't find anything missing when I inspected the room, and it didn't look as if anything and been moved or taken" Gongenzaka explained "In fact, nothing in the room had been touched." He turned to Serena "All you girls did was unpack your rooms and come back downstairs, yes?"

"Y-yes" Serena sniffled, wiping up tears from her cheeks "The three of us – Sayaka, Ruri and I – had made sure all of our things were there, and Sayaka and I were getting ready to go back downstairs to the living room. We were gonna wait for Ruri, but she told us to go on ahead because she was going to go to Reira's room to get Reiji. She was just going to put away her jacket first. So Sayaka and I left and then…" Serena began crying again. "I-If we hadn't have left her…"

Sayaka's eyes were unfocused, staring straight ahead, like she immune to everything, like she existed completely separate from the word.

"Serena" Gongenzaka placed his hand on top of hers comfortingly "Don't blame yourself. It's not your fault."

"But that means that Sayaka and Serena were the last ones to see Ruri" Rin commented.

"What are you saying?!" Serena all but lunged at the other girl on the sofa.

Rin stood up, moving across the room and holding her hands up defensively. "I'm not implying that you did anything, I was just pointing it out!"

"Hey, leave her alone, she didn't mean anything by it!" Yugo quickly jumped to his girlfriend's defence.

"Tch!" Sawatari slammed the cordless phone back down into its holder, causing everyone to turn toward him. "I can't get ahold of anyone!"

"Really?" Yuzu blinked "How come they're not answering their phones?"

"That is rather unusual" Yuto commented "How many times did you try calling?"

"I called my parents four times and the police station three!" Sawatari replied, obvious frustration in his voice. "It rang and rang and rang forever, but no one picked up!"

"Well, what do we do now?" Allen asked in a defeated tone.

"The only thing I can think of is for everyone to just return to their rooms and lock the doors" Rin inputted.

"I'm a little worried about separating everyone" Gongenzaka folded his arms "But if we stay in at least groups of two, we should be okay."

"Y-Yeah" Serena agreed.

"I'm still worried about not being able to get ahold of the police" Yuto mentioned.

"I'll keep trying with my mobile phone – maybe they'll pick up for that" Sawatari promised him.

The group all said their good nights, hoping to get the death of Ruri off of their minds, at least for now. It wasn't going to help if everyone stayed in a state of panic and couldn't get any sleep.

After a few people left the room (Yuto shooting Shun a worried glance before he decided there was nothing he could do by staying so instead helped Sayaka up to Rin's room, with it being the furthest away on the girls' floor from Ruri's), Yuri observed Shun, Yuzu, Serena, Gongenzaka and Yuya were still left. Yuya and Shun still weren't in much of a state to move. Serena still felt a little sick, but Yuzu promised that once they made it to her room that she could rest. But that hadn't been what she was worried about.

"Yuya's still acting strange…" she said wearily.

Yuri had noticed that as well. It was understandable for Shun to be in his condition after seeing his little sister dead in front of him, but Yuya had been wide eyed and silent ever since returning from first checking out his room. Extremely unusual behaviour, considering how joyous he normally was. Even if he had eaten too much at dinner, it still didn't make any sense for him to be acting this way.

"Yuya" Serena spoke softly, still weak from all the vomiting she had done earlier "Hey, are you okay? What's wrong, Yuya?"

Yuya glanced over at her, which actually startled her. He opened his mouth slowly to speak, but then quickly closed it and turned away.

"Yuya?" Yuzu now spoke up. "What is it? Tell us!"

Yuya began shivering. "I-I can't…"

Yuri wanted to say something, but didn't want to interrupt the girls. Yuzu and Gongenzaka knew Yuya best, and Serena had served on the Lancers with him, so it was probably easier for Yuya to talk to them rather than him.

"Please, Yuya" Yuzu pleaded.

"…I-I know…I know…"

"Know?" Gongenzaka questioned, sitting down on the sofa next to where Yuya was lying "Know what?"

"…I saw…"

"Saw?!" Gongenzaka and Yuzu gasped.

Serena squeaked and her eyes bulged.

"Saw?" Yuri spoke up, interested in what he was going to say now "Saw who murdered the girl?"

Before Yuya could respond, Shun sat up and gasped loudly, eyes wide.

"Reira!" he suddenly shouted, rising up off the sofa and rushing out of the room.

"Where the hell are you going?!" Yuri yelled after him.

When Shun didn't respond, he groaned and ran after him. They were supposed to be staying in groups of two after all, and it was clear the squad back there weren't going to leave Yuya anytime soon. Better make sure Birdbird didn't die or they would probably blame him for not watching out for him.

Reira's room was on the third floor, but when they arrived they found someone already standing outside his door.

"Yuto?"

"Hey guys!" Yuto exclaimed, raising his head at Shun's call "What's going on? Sawatari was worried about Reiji and Reira so I said we'd check on them."

"Why are you by yourself?" Yuri asked. He thought the plan was to stay in groups of two. He better not have run up here after the Xyz idiot for nothing.

"Well, I was walking down here with Yugo, but Yugo said he suddenly had to use the bathroom and to just meet him down here" Yuto explained.

"M-Move!" Shun stammered impatiently, nudging Yuto aside to enter the room.

A moment after entering the room, he suddenly fell to his knees and began shaking. Yuri rushed in behind him, followed by Yuto. A strangled sound escaped Yuto's throat.

There was blood plastered all over the room. The only two occupants of the room were covered in it. Reiji was face down, just like Ruri had been, near the base of the bed with a huge gash in his back. Reira was lying on his back in small the bed with blood all over his face. There was no sign of him being stabbed, but it was hard to tell with the bloody blanket covering him.

"O-Oh…Oh god…" Yuri stammered, gripping the doorframe for support. He may have been an Academia solider during the Interdimensional War, but that amount of blood was something he'd never been confronted with before.

Suddenly, the three that had just walked in jumped at the sound of shuffling. They all stared in shock when Reira sat up and rubbed his eyes, unknowingly smearing the blood on his cheeks as the teddy bear he'd been cuddling fell to the bloody floor.

"Nii-sama? Where did you go?"


	5. Sadness

**Sadness**

"R-Reira…?" Yuto, along with Yuri and Shun, stared at him in utter disbelief.

With his older brother dead beside him and the entire room stained in red…

How was he not dead?

"Kurosaki? What's going on?" Before Shun could even answer his question (one which even Shun couldn't really give a straight answer to other than that Reiji was dead) Reira's eyes widened as he noticed the blood covering the walls around him. He looked down at his stained blanket with alarm and threw it aside, starting to hyperventilate. As he fumbled to get off of the bed, he nearly slipped on something wet on the floor.

"Reira!" Shun lurched forward, catching Reira as the two tumbled to the floor.

"Oww…" Reira raised his head "Kurosaki—" the seven-year-old abruptly stopped mid-sentence.

"Reira, are you—?" Shun paused as well, not able to finish his sentence when he realised what Reira was looking at. Reiji's dead body was right next to them. Reira had slipped in his blood.

If Reira hadn't been hyperventilating before, he sure as hell was now.

"Reira!" Shun didn't know what to say to calm him down. He just continued to stare in horror at the body of his former boss in front of him.

Yuri finally spoke up, praying he wouldn't be sick when he opened his mouth. "We have to leave."

None of them moved.

"Come on! We can't stay here. He's dead. So what? Stop traumatising the kid and get him some hot chocolate or whatever" Yuri wasn't used to comforting someone, especially not small children.

Yuto cautiously tiptoed around the body, attempting to avoid the blood but there was just too much to miss it all. He crouched in between Shun and Reira and Reiji's body, and placed a hand on each of their shoulders. "Please. Let's go. I know it's hard, but…" he looked down, trying not to tear up. He hadn't known Reiji very well, but there was another person dead. It was all hard to take in. He couldn't stay in here with the body anymore, not to mention the horror it must be doing to Reira's young mind. He had to get himself and his remaining friends out of here. "C'mon…"

Shun glanced up at him. Yuto looked at him sympathetically, as his lower half was covered in Reiji's blood. First Ruri, now he had to suffer this.

"Okay…" Shun finally replied with a breath.

He gently picked Reira up and carried him out of the room, Yuto and Yuri following behind and closing the door.

As Yuto reached up with the edge of his sleeve to wipe the blood from Reira's face, he couldn't help but wonder: Reira was sleeping in the room while Reiji was being butchered. Reira was known for being a heavy sleeper, but even if he didn't wake up…

Why did the murderer decide to spare him?

* * *

A few moments later, Yuzu and Serena came sprinting down the hallway toward the group outside Reira's room.

"What's wrong?" Yuzu asked urgently "We heard noises. Wait, Yuto? What are you doing to him?" She had noticed Yuto before she spotted Reira and Shun were covered in blood. "What happened?!"

"Yuzu, Serena" The words died on Yuto's tongue as he tried to find a way to tell the girls what they had just found "That's not their blood. Reiji was…murdered."

As both Serena and Yuzu gasped in horror, Yuri briskly explained what happened after he chased after Shun to Reira's room, running into Yuto, what they discovered when they entered the room, and their surprise at the fact that Reira was spared.

"I can't believe that he was murdered…but not Reira" Serena muttered "I mean, I'm not saying that he should have died or anything, of course not, but it's just odd that the murderer…"

"Didn't kill me?" Reira finished her sentence, his voice low and quiet.

Everyone looked at each other, not sure what to say.

"Well no offence but you were the perfect target" Yuri finally spoke up "Or maybe it was a way to try to pin the crime on you. No one would suspect you of being capable of murdering people, but people would think it odd if you were left alive in a room with your brother dead next to you and be able to sleep through it all."

Reira lowed his gaze, no longer able to look at him. "I guess that's true…"

"Hey you scum, stop upsetting him!" Shun barked glaring at Yuri as he held Reira in his arms protectively "He's seven years old! There's no way he killed his own brother!"

"I'm being pragmatic" Yuri rolled his eyes, unbothered by all the hostility pointed towards him "You could sit here for hours and try to convince me that the kid didn't murder him, but he's still the most likely suspect."

"But that can't be right" Yuto shook his head "Reira can't be the murderer; he was in here the whole time when Ruri was murdered, asleep."

"RURI?!" Reira yelled out, eyes wide with shock, causing everyone to jump.

No one responded immediately.

"Yes" Shun finally responded, choking on his words. "Ruri is…dead."

Reira couldn't believe it. It was already bad enough that Nii-Sama had died, but now Ruri, too? Ruri was so nice. Reira had seen death far too many time in his short life, but Ruri was the most undeserving person to die he could think of, right next to Nii-Sama.

"What…is going on…?" He crawled out of Shun's arms, sat on the floor and hugged his knees. Shun sat on the floor next to him and awkwardly patted his shoulder. Serena backed up against the wall and slid down on the opposite side of Reira.

"I…I don't know, Reira" Serena slowly reached her arm around Reira's shoulders, letting him rest his head on her shoulder "I don't know…"

Everyone remained silent for a few moments, not too sure of what to say. A few tears were snaking down Reira's cheeks. He went to wipe them away with the sleeve of his hoodie, but forgot that Nii-Sama's blood was still on his face, red staining the blue fabric. He drew his eyes shut in frustration, having been reminded of when he saw Nii-Sama's bloody, lifeless body of the floor. He could have been killed just like him; he was right there! But for some reason he had been spared. Why? What was the point?

Yuri finally spoke through the silence. "I think we should all return to the main room. Yuya and big guy with the sash are still there, right? We all need to lock ourselves in our separate rooms until one of us can get hold of the police."

"Yeah."

Everyone nodded in agreement, which they very rarely did with Yuri. Shun had Reira take his hand as he moved him down the hallway into Shun's room. Reira needed a change of clothes; even though the blanket had prevented a lot of blood from splattering on his clothes, his trousers were soaked due to landing in Reiji's blood, just like Shun's were. Yuto took a breath and headed back into Reira's room to find some spare clothes for the small boy.

Whilst the other two dealt with Reira, Yuri, Yuzu, and Serena headed back down to the main room. Serena had been leading the group, and the two behind her were surprised when she suddenly stopped in front of them. Yuzu noticed Serena's drastic change in expression when her eyes widened and she threw her hands over her mouth.

"What's going on?" she pushed past Serena into the main room and let a scream tear from her throat at the horror in front of her.

Just minutes after having to hear about the discovery of the second body, the count now rose to three. Gongenzaka lay in the centre of the main room on his back in a pool of blood, three noticeable stab wounds in his chest. There appeared to have been a spot where someone had been kneeling in the pool, maybe trying to close Gongenzaka's wounds or perhaps moving in closer to cause more damage.

"N-NOBURU!" Yuzu screamed, everyone now in full view of the dead man. She attempted to run towards him, but Yuri grabbed her to stop her. She attempted to kick him off, but he forced her head to face him, and he just shook his head. Yuzu fell to her knees on the floor and just wept there, Serena kneeling down also and rubbing circles on her back in an attempt to stop herself from crying too.

"Hey" Yuri spoke up, glancing around the room with a confused look on his face "Aren't we missing someone?"

"Yuya!" Serena yelped, turning toward the couch where Yuya had been laying.

"Oi! YUYA!" Yuri cupped his hands and yelled "Get your stupid arse down here! People are dead!"

Even that didn't work. Everyone searched the room carefully for any trace of Yuya, but there was nothing to be found. Not even outside of the room. In this time, Reira, Shun and Yuto came into the room, Reira bursting into tears and hyperventilating, whilst Shun and Yuto turned rather green.

"Yuya's missing" Yuri kicked the ground "Are you sure he was in here when you guys left?"

"Yeah" Serena nodded, sitting down on the sofa next to Yuzu, who was crying even harder now "He was here along with Gongenzaka when we took off to find out what all the noise going on upstairs was about. He was still out of it, so Gongenzaka offered to question him a little more about what was wrong with him." She sighed "If only we insisted he came along."

"What was up with Yuya? Was he still sick from earlier?" Yuto asked.

"We weren't sure if he was sick or not, but he looked more spooked than anything. We asked him what was going on with him and the only things he said were that he couldn't say, 'I know', and 'I saw'" Serena explained.

"Saw?" Yuto tilted his head to the side "Saw what?"

"That was what we were trying to figure out" Yuri folded his arms over his chest "And now he's missing."

"You don't think that maybe…" Shun trailed off, leaning against the wall in his fresh clothes. He lowered his head, taking a quick glance at Gongenzaka's body before turning away.

"That Yuya could be the killer?" Yuri finished.

"No way!" Yuzu yelled.

"NO!" Reira half-screeched, tears running down his face "YUYA NII-SAMA WOULD NEVER DO THAT!"

"Let's not jump to conclusions" Serena put in before Reira really did try and commit a homicide "The murderer is acting pretty fishy. He spared Reira and now Yuya is missing. He could be using Yuya for something."

"Yuya did seem genuinely…fearful of something" Yuzu commented, swallowing tears. "I've never seen him like that before."

"I just can't think that the murderer could be any of our friends…" Serena swallowed "I mean, why would anybody do this? Ruri and Reiji and now Gongenzaka. It just doesn't make sense."

"Well, it's the only thing we have to go on" Yuri spoke up "That means that no matter if we lock ourselves in our rooms, the person we sleep next-door to could be the killer."

Everyone gasped at the thought of that.

"It's not safe anywhere…" Serena began to tear up. "What are we supposed to do?"

"Well, there's no splitting up at this point" Yuto told the group "We should all stick together."

"Do you think Sawatari's gotten a hold of the police yet?" Yuzu questioned.

"That loudmouth would've told us all if he had" Yuri pointed out.

"Why don't a few of us go out to the police station ourselves?" Serena asked.

"You seemed to forget about the little problem know as: the blizzard" Shun jabbed and thumb in the direction of the white-outted window.

"He's right" Yuto sadly agreed "This is terrible."

"How many of us are there?" Yuzu asked "Is there anyone we can eliminate as not being the murderer?"

"Well" Yuto paused to think "There are seventeen of us total. Three of us – Ruri, Reiji and Gongenzaka - are dead, so now we're down to fourteen."

"That doesn't narrow it down much…" Shun frowned.

"I might be able to narrow it down more" Yuto hastily added "But it's difficult. Since any one of our friends could be the murderer, no one can really be relied on for alibis. Especially for Ruri's murder."

"Well, can't we assume that if we were together between Reiji's murder and Gongenzaka's murder," Serena said, 'we' meaning Yuzu and herself "And that Reira and Yuto were with Yuri and Kurosaki before the two of us left Gongenzaka and Yuya alive in the main room, that none of us could have been responsible for any of the murders?"

"True" Yuto nodded "But there's also another problem."

"What is it?" Yuzu asked.

"The possibility that there's more than one murderer."

The room was deathly silent. More than one murderer? That couldn't be…

"That means that any of us could be…" Yuzu trailed off, glancing around the room sceptically at everyone.

Reira began backing away from Shun slowly. Anyone could be an enemy.

"Reira?" Shun stared at him in shock.

"Anyone…" Reira held his clenched fists up toward his chest in a defensive position. Even Kurosaki could be the murderer. He couldn't take any chances getting too close to anyone. Especially not considering that he was this close to being murdered himself.

Shun's face tightened, his fists clenching and then unclenching. He had already lost Ruri, and now Reira potentially suspected him of being the murderer. He couldn't take it anymore.

"Yuto!" He suddenly rushed up and grabbed the boy's collar, pulling him close. Shun glared at his childhood friend through gritted teeth. "One, two, five murderers, I don't care how many! They murdered my family, and now I'm possibly being suspected! We need to find out who they are immediately and take them down!"

"Shun, please, calm down!" Serena stood up and tried to separate him from Yuto, but Shun swatted her away.

"Don't tell me to calm down!" he shouted.

"Shun, stop!" Yuzu grabbed Shun's other arm "Maybe this is what the murderer wants! He's just playing with our minds! We need to get a grip and focus!"

Shun stared hard into Yuzu's smokey-blue eyes that reminded him so much of Ruri's. She looked like she was about to cry.

"Please…" she pleaded "Stop…"

Shun obliged and let go of Yuto's collar. "Fine. But I suggest we do something about this quick."

"Shun's right" Serena agreed "We can't afford to let anyone else die."

Her gaze flitted over to Gongenzaka's body, before quickly squeezing her eyes shut and turning her head away.

"Do you think that maybe it would be a better plan to just have everyone gather in here?" Yuri suggested, sounding almost bored "That way, we'll all be in here and no one else should be murdered because we'll all be in the same room."

"Yeah, that's a good idea" Yuto nodded, a little shaken up from Shun's sudden outburst "If we can't get hold of the police tonight, we'll just have to wait until morning."

"What a rubbish way to spend the morning of Sawatari's birthday" Serena muttered.

"Let's call everyone into the living room instead" Yuzu suggested "Obviously because…"

She glanced over at Gongenzaka's body.

"Of course" Yuto nodded, accepting the role of being in charge of this small group of people.

Before they left for the living room, Yuzu pulled out a bed sheet from the hallway cupboard to place over Gongenzaka. Until the police could get here, they would just have to leave him there.

Serena sent a mass text passed on by Dennis, directing everyone to report to the living room. She hoped no one would question the change in rooms so that they wouldn't venture off to the main room themselves. Fortunately, no one did. Though everyone seemed confused as to why they were there.

Once Shun was sure that enough time had gone by, he and Sawatari began doing a head count.

"…Eleven, twelve." Sawatari stopped, then counted again. Twelve people were in the room, counting himself. That wasn't right. "Fourteen, right? Who's missing?"

"Yuya" Shun answered "Yuya's still missing."

"Oh!" they heard Yuto gasp "Yugo was supposed to walk with me to Reira's room, but he told me to go on ahead because he had to use the bathroom! He never showed up!"

Shun and Sawatari glanced at one another. If this meant what they thought it did…

There could be another dead body in the mansion somewhere.


	6. Gone

**Gone**

"We have to find Yugo" Shun decided "He could be in trouble."

"Or…" Yuto squeezed his eyes shut, trying not to cry. He couldn't help but feel that Yugo being missing was his fault. He should've stayed with him. "He's already…dead…"

"Don't think like that" Shun hurriedly stopped that line of thought "I'm sure he's okay. This is Yugo we're talking about. He's stupid, but he fights like hell. If he'd gotten into any trouble the whole house would know."

Shun glanced around at everyone else in the room. A few were chatting curiously among themselves, but for the most part they were staring at Reira, who's hair was still splattered with blood.

"Hey" Allen decided to approach the small boy "Are you still sick? You haven't been coughing up blood, have you?"

"U-Uh, um…" Reira began to panic. Besides Yuto, Shun, Yuri, Yuzu, Serena and himself, no one else knew about the murders of Reiji and Gongenzaka. Was Shun going to say something?

"Okay, everyone, listen up!" Serena spoke up first, standing up "I don't mean to scare everyone, but we have a huge problem! There are more people dead and others are missing!"

There was a collection of gasps heard, and the group instantly began looking frantically for who wasn't in the room.

"Who?" Rin questioned "Who's dead?!"

Reira lowered his head. He knew he had to break the news of Yugo's disappearance to Rin, and she wasn't going to take it well.

"Rin…" he carefully stepped over to her and placed his head onto her chest, raising his hands to her shirt. "Gongenzaka's dead. Nii-Sama Yuya and Yugo are missing."

He couldn't see Rin's expression, but he knew from the way she grabbed his arms and squeezed. She wasn't going to hurt him - no one could ever be mad at Reira - but she was obviously angry and frustrated.

Shun was about in interject, but Yuzu stopped him and insisted he let Reira take care of Rin. She was still ready to puke with worry about Yuya's disappearance, so she knew Rin needed a comforting presence to keep her calm. For her it was Serena. Reira though was so innocent and kind that it would be impossible for Rin to not feel comforted by him.

"Hey, Scarf McGee's missing too!" Sora pointed out

"Akaba Jr's dead as well" Yuri told him bluntly.

Sora stared at him in disbelief. "ARE YOU SERIOUS?!"

"What the hell's going on?" Dennis remarked, barely about to believe what he was hearing "More people are dead? I can't believe this."

"Where are the police?!" Sayaka squeaked "Why aren't they here?!"

"I can't reach them" Sawatari confirmed what they all knew "And trying to get to the city on foot in this weather is just plain dumb. "

Yuto then took over. "We gathered everyone in here so that we can keep everyone safe. We can't separate from each other anymore."

"Didn't you say that Yuya and Yugo are missing?" Dennis pointed out "Where did they go?"

"We're not sure" Serena said slowly "But we need to find them quickly."

"Who's going to go look?" Shun asked.

"I am!" Rin suddenly shouted, startling Reira "If anyone has hurt either of them, I swear…"

"I'll go as well" Yuto decided "I was the last person to see Yugo. If something happened to him, I…"

"Okay, that's fine" Shun nodded "Yuzu, I guess you'll probably want to go too. Yuri and I will watch over everyone here."

Yuri opened his mouth to argue, but he met Serena's glaring gaze and decided it would be best not to.

"Sayaka and I wanna go, too!" Allen stepped forward and raised his hand. Sayaka nodded determinedly.

"Me too" Serena agreed.

"Alright" Yuto nodded "Six is better than three. Let's go."

Before they left the living room, Yuto made a mental note of everyone they were leaving behind. Shun, Yuri, Dennis, Sora, Reira and Sawatari. He glanced over at Rin, Yuzu, Serena, Sayaka and Allen. Allen was walking next to him, Sayaka and Serena were walking together just behind him while Yuzu was holding onto Rin's arm a few steps behind them. If she let go of her arm, Yuto was sure Rin would probably go crazy with worry.

"So, what exactly happened to Reiji and Gongenzaka?" Allen asked.

Yuto decided to spend the next few minutes quickly explaining the situation from when everyone left the main room after hearing of Ruri's murder to when they discovered Gongenzaka's body.

"And now Yuya and Yugo turn up missing?" Rin asked, surprisingly calm after hearing the explanation "I can't believe it…what's going on around here?"

"I don't know, but we have to keep everyone together" Yuto decided, staying as calm as possible and trying to act like Reiji and Gongenzaka did. He could only hope their cool demeanours weren't the reason they were killed. "Once we find Yuya and Yugo, we need to return to the living room and stay there until we can reach the police."

"I hope they're okay" Sayaka whispered "I would hate it if Yugo was killed."

"Me neither, it's my fault if he is" Yuto swallowed.

"Yuto, don't blame yourself" Rin told him "He should have stayed with you. I don't know why he wandered off. He does such stupid things sometimes."

"I'm worried, though" Allen said solemnly "I mean, considering what we've been told, Yuya seems like he could be…"

"Don't say that!" Yuzu snapped "Yuya can't be a killer! Why would he kill Noburu?! Why would he kill anyone?!"

"We're not saying that Yuya's the killer" Serena reassured her "But someone around here is killing our friends off. Let's just focus on finding them right now."

They had silently walked past the second and third floors, with Yuzu and Allen shivering knowing that there were two dead bodies down those corridors. They stopped halfway up the stairs to the fourth and final floor (the house had no attic) where Yuya, Yuto, Yuri, Yugo, Sora and Sawatari's rooms were.

"This was about where Yugo left me" Yuto pointed out "It was by this huge window. He said he should go to the bathroom before he visited Reira because he didn't want to have to get up again."

Sighing, he observed the large window, stretching almost from the stairs to the ceiling. Peeking outside, the blizzard was horrendous. Sawatari was right, there was no way anyone was being sent out in that.

Then he remembered something Sawatari had said.

"It rang and rang and rang forever, but no one picked up!"

Yuto hadn't given it much thought before, but he had assumed that maybe the power might have gone out at the police station or something. But if the phone kept ringing and ringing, that meant that the phone lines weren't dead. Nobody was picking up the phone.

No one.

"Here's a bathroom!" Yuto was snapped out of his thoughts by Rin's voice yelling from down the fourth floor corridor. The group joined her up the flight of stairs and the outside the room, the door slightly ajar. "I mean, I think it is."

"Let me open it" Yuzu offered, stepping forward.

Rin wasn't sure whether that was a good idea or not - she was a little worried about what they would find behind the door - but she couldn't tell Yuzu otherwise. The music diva was going to open it regardless.

Yuzu reached out and placed her fingertips on the wooden door, listening to it creak. When she opened it all the way, she turned on the light and everyone collectively gasped.

Yuya was lying face down on the floor, blood on his clothing.

"YUYA!" Yuzu screamed, rushing to his side "Yuya! Yuya, wake up! Yuya!"

"Don't touch him!" Serena warned her, remembering what Gongenzaka had said in Ruri's room.

"Shut up!" Yuzu barked, completely ignoring the her and kneeling down to pick Yuya up to place him in her lap. "Yuya, can you hear me?! Yuya!"

"Mph…Mmm…" the group was all shocked to hear Yuya stirring, starting to wake up. He slowly raised his eyelids and looked at Yuzu. "Yu…zu?"

"Yuya!" Yuzu hugged her best friend, tears in her eyes "I'm so glad you're okay! Are you hurt anywhere?! What happened?!"

"I-I think something hit my head and knocked me out…" Yuya reached to touch the back of his head. "But I'm not hurt anywhere else…"

"What were you doing, Yuya?" Serena was now beside Yuzu, questioning Yuya. "You disappeared after Gongenzaka was…"

Yuya's eyes widened and he began shaking uncontrollably. "G-Gongenzaka... he was… I had to run! I didn't want to die!"

"Did you see the murderer?" Rin asked quickly "What happened?"

"I was lying on the sofa and Gongenzaka was talking to me, but I was getting really tired so I began drifting off to sleep. The next thing I knew, I heard him talking again but I didn't open my eyes. I heard him yell and there was a thud. Someone was breathing heavily and saying something, but it was hard to tell what they were saying. I opened one of my eyes and saw...G-Gongenzaka...lying on the ground covered in blood. Whoever stabbed him had their back to me and was watching him die. I freaked out and darted off the sofa toward the other door. I think they tried chasing after me but they didn't catch up for a while. I hid in here and wasn't sure what to do next. After about twenty minutes, I tried walking out of here and rushing to tell Yuzu, but…that's when something bashed me in the back of the head." Yuya explained, trembling and gulping for air in sheer terror "Maybe it was the murderer…"

"What?" Allen raised an eyebrow "I'm confused. If it was the murderer, why didn't he just kill you?"

"Well, the murderer also spared Reira, too" Sayaka mentioned "What kind of games is he playing?"

"He must've knocked Yuya out with something and threw him in here" Yuto decided "But it doesn't make sense as to why he didn't kill him."

"I don't know…" Yuzu shook her head, her hair hiding her face "But at least you're still alive. That's all that matters."

"But wait" Serena spoke up "Yuya, earlier you were acting really strange. Yuzu and Gongenzaka were trying to ask you about what was wrong. You might have mentioned seeing something. Did you possibly…witness something?"

Yuzu helped Yuya sit up properly, and the boy stared at the ground for a moment before answering. "I…I think…No, I saw…Ruri's murderer…"

Everyone gasped in horror.

"You…You saw him?!" Sayaka squeaked.

"I was on my way back to the main room when I saw him rush out of Ruri's room and throw the door shut behind him. It was dark in the hallway, so I couldn't tell who it was. At first, I thought it was Kurosaki, since I knew that room was Ruri's room, so I peeked inside to see if she had left, and that's when I saw…Ruri...dead. I immediately got sick and rushed to the bathroom in my room to throw up. Yugo asked what was wrong, but I couldn't tell him. I couldn't say anything! After that I didn't want to leave the room, but Yugo insisted on taking me downstairs. He didn't want me to miss out on the party… I-I wanted to tell someone, but I…panicked! I was so scared!" Yuya hugged his arms and Yuzu bent down next to him to rest her head on his shoulder.

"So that's why you were acting that way" Rin realised "I met you two on the way downstairs and you were acting all weird. Yugo didn't know why though. We thought you'd just had too much to eat."

"I can't believe…I'm not dead, though…" Yuya breathed "Did you say Reira was spared? Was someone else murdered, too?"

Yuto re-explained the situation to Yuya, including how Reira woke up from his nap to find Reiji dead beside his bed and him covered in his brother's blood.

"I don't…understand…" Yuya hung his head and clenched his fists "The murderer killed Ruri, Reiji…and Gongenzaka! Then he decided to spare Reira and I! Why?! Why is he doing this?!"

His voice rose until he was practically screaming and hyperventilating by the end. Yuzu drew him close to her and ran her hand through his hair to calm him down.

"We have no clue…" Yuto explained "But the fact that Yuya was spared is something that really troubles me."

"Why's that?" Allen asked.

Yuto took a breath. "Think about it. Yuya saw the murderer twice. And when Yuya walked out of the bathroom, the murderer only knocked him out. He had the perfect opportunity to kill him, but yet he didn't take it. Even though Yuya couldn't tell who he was, the murderer doesn't know that. For all he knows, Yuya could be telling us right now who he is! The murderer is doing more than just playing games… There must be some reason he specifically spared Yuya, and possibly even Reira. And we need to find out what it is as soon as possible!"


	7. Split

**Split**

Yuto, Rin, Yuzu, Serena, Sayaka, Allen and now Yuya were walking down the dimly lit hallways of the mansion on their search for the missing Yugo. Luckily for them, they'd found Yuya alive and they were all in slightly better spirits than they had been before. Now they just hoped that they would find Yugo the same…

After allowing Yuya to change out of his blood-soaked clothes, they spent the last hour opening doors, searching thoroughly through rooms and panicking even more when they were running out of rooms to look through. Rin was, understandably, about to lose it.

"Where could he be?" Rin angrily threw a laundry basket across the room "It's almost like he's hiding from us!"

When Rin said that, Sayaka gasped. "Wait…"

"What is it?" Yuya asked.

"I-I'd hate to say this, more than anything, but…is there a possibility that maybe…Yugo is…"

"Don't say that!" There was a manic look in Rin's gold eyes as she grabbed the bespectacled girl's shoulders aggressively.

"H-hey!" The rest of the group lunged forward, shoving Rin off of Sayaka while Allen and Serena grabbed Rin from behind.

"Stop it, Rin!" Serena yelped.

"Are you okay, Sayaka?" Yuzu asked.

Sayaka appeared too shocked to respond.

"Rin! Calm down! Calm down!" Yuya urged her, taking both of her hands and running his fingertips over the skin around her knuckles. She was shaking, somewhere between furious and horrified, and Yuya gave her a hug to try to calm her down. It was a very Yugo-like move, Yuzu noted, but it was what Rin needed right now.

"Rin, it's okay" Yuya did his best to diffuse the situation "She doesn't mean any harm, but she's right. Someone in this house is a killer, and if we can't find Yugo anywhere, he's either dead or the killer. Or just ridiculously good at hiding and waiting for one of us to come find him."

"But Yugo's not the type of person to run from something like this" Yuzu pointed out "He's confrontational as hell and _hates_ sitting still. He wouldn't just hide and stay there forever."

"Something's wrong either way" Yuto added "Rin, I know you're upset, but we have to stay focused, alright?"

Rin slowly pulled herself out of Yuya's hug, eyes averted to the ground.

"Sorry, Sayaka, I didn't mean to take it out on you" she apologised "I'm just…so scared for him."

Sayaka just nodded, eyes clouded with tears behind her glasses. It was clear the outburst had shocked her greatly.

"What are we gonna do if we search all these rooms and can't find Yugo?" Serena asked.

"We search again!" Rin said without a moment's hesitation "I'm not leaving Yugo to fend for himself!"

Surprisingly, Sayaka nodded in agreement with her. Allen too.

"But we need to get back to the others soon" Serena pointed out, a restraining hand hovering close to Rin's shoulder "We have to stay together so that no one else gets murdered."

Rin gritted her teeth. "Yugo, where the hell are you…"

"C'mon, let's keep looking. We won't give up now" Yuya said.

Everyone but Rin nodded. Rin just clenched her fists.

"Fine."

* * *

Meanwhile, Shun, Yuri, Dennis, Sora, Reira and Sawatari were still in the living room waiting for the others to return. For a while, no one spoke. There wasn't really anything to say. Three of their friends were dead, and two were missing. They were just hoping they would return with Yuya and Yugo by their side. Alive.

Then they heard footsteps. Everyone glanced over toward the hallway.

"Yuya!" Sora yelled relief when everyone entered the room. He jumped up and grabbed the taller boy in a huge hug. "You're alive!"

The others, except Yuri, got up and rushed to their side.

"Yeah, I'm okay" Yuya hung his head "But…Gongenzaka..."

"We know" Sora nodded, unusually solemn for one "We all know."

"Did you guys…find Yugo?" Sawatari asked cautiously.

No one answered for a moment.

"No!" Dennis gasped, bringing both hands up to his mouth in the most dramatic gesture he could think of. Because as if the situation needed more drama. "Don't tell me he's…!"

"We don't know" Serena explained with a strained look on her face "We couldn't find him."

"I'm not sure if that's good news or not" Shun frowned.

"Did you guys look everywhere?" Yuri inquired.

"Yes. Even in Ruri's room" Yuto nodded, shuddering at the mention of his dead friend's name "But we found out that Yuya saw the killer after they murdered Ruri and before they knocked him out in the bathroom."

"WHAT?" Everyone gasped.

"Who's the murderer?!" Dennis shoved Sora aside slightly and grabbed Yuya's shoulders "Who killed the others?!"

"I-I don't know!" Yuya stammered "It was too dark to see!"

"Wait, so you saw the murderer twice, but they didn't kill you?" Yuri asked, finding this a little difficult to believe. Yuzu and Serena shot him a glare. "No, I didn't mean it like that!"

"We asked the same question" Sayaka explained "The killer knocked him out but didn't kill him."

"Does the killer know that Yuya couldn't see him in the dark?" Shun asked.

"He didn't kill Reira either, even though he had a perfect opportunity to" Yuzu pointed out.

"Nothing's making sense" Sawatari frowned "At least everyone's together now, except for Yugo."

"What do we do now?" Yuto asked "Should we swap groups and search again?"

"I'm gonna go look for him again!" Rin stomped her foot decisively "Whoever's coming with me better hurry it up!" Sayaka leapt to her side immediately, Allen right after her.

"Everyone, hold your horses!" Yuto placed a restraining hand on Rin's shoulder to stop her "We can't just go blindly looking for Yugo again. We need to think of a plan."

"He's right, Rin" Yuzu looked at her friend "Why don't we split into two equal groups and take a floor to search? One group will take the third and fourth floors, one will take the second, and then we'll regroup and take the whole first floor together."

"Okay, that sounds good" Sawatari agreed "I hate to say this, but we need to act like the killer is among us. We're the only people left here and it would be difficult to trust anyone individually, so we need to stay in as big a group as possible in order to monitor one another. There are thirteen of us, so one group of six and another of seven. Let's decide the groups with a deck of cards."

Sawatari walked over to a side table and picked a deck of cards. "I'll remove one Ace, one one, one two and so forth until the King. I'll shuffle the cards I took out and everyone will pick one. Anyone between an Ace and six will be in one group and seven to King will be in the other group. That way the groups will be completely random. Any questions?"

Sora raised his hand. "Yeah, how the hell do you know so much about cards?"

Sawatari rolled his eyes. "Well, if it's that important, you know since someone's out there killing us off and all, before I tried my luck with darts, I was a pretty decent blackjack player. Is that it?"

After another question from Sora was shot down, Sawatari gathered the cards. He shuffled the thirteen cards and held them out, everyone grabbing a card one by one.

"Okay, show me your cards."

The groups ended up like this: Yuya, Yuri, Yuto, Sayaka, Sawatari and Serena were in the first group while Shun, Rin, Reira, Allen, Dennis, Yuzu and Sora were in the second group.

"All right, there are more rooms on the second floor, even if most of them are empty, so the second group can take that floor and we'll take the third and fourth floors" Sawatari announced "Let's go find Yugo!"

The groups were silent as they walked towards the stairs. They wished each other luck as they separated.

"Let's get started."

* * *

The first group reached the top of the stairs and stopped, as they had all been following Yuto. He turned around to face his group.

"We are all to stay together, understand?" he said intently. Everyone but Sayaka nodded. Yuto noticed this. "Sayaka? Is something wrong?"

"I-I'm just scared" she sniffled, sounded like she was about to cry. "I-I'm sorry, I don't mean to hold the group back…"

"It's okay, 'Yaka" Sawatari smiled at her to try to lighten the mood "Would you like to hold my hand?"

He held out his hand to her.

"O-Okay" she took it and squeezed. "T-Thanks…"

"I'd rather this was over quickly, but I want to make sure we search thoroughly" Yuto announced "Let's begin searching."

They began searching the rooms one by one, making sure to open every door, look under every bed, behind every curtain, in every wardrobe…

Finally, a half-hour passed. They were almost done with the fourth floor. So far, no sign of Yugo, even in his own room.

"Well, that does it" Serena declared, slamming the double doors of the wardrobe shut "Clearly he's gone through one of these into Narnia."

"I can't believe we can't find him" Yuto commented as they all wandered back into the hallway "Whether he's dead or alive, I don't understand how we can't find him."

Yuri nodded in agreement "I'm really starting to wonder about this...really..."

He glanced over at Yuya. He hadn't said a word since they began their search, which seemed unusual for him.

"Sorry about your birthday, Sawatari" Sayaka whimpered sympathetically.

"I don't care at, so long as we find Yugo" Sawatari told her, and he meant it. This wasn't the time for selfishness – people were dead. "We need to just focus on finding Yugo. We're not losing anyone else."

Suddenly, the lights turned off completely. The group was enveloped in darkness.

"Kyaaahhhh!" Sayaka screamed.

"Nobody move-AH!" Yuri shouted.

"Yuri, what happened?!" Serena asked urgently.

"Goddammit it's burning!" Yuri all but shrieked.

"What's burning?!" Yuto asked urgently.

The lights flickered back on. Everyone looked around at one another.

"Are we all still here?" Yuya asked.

"Yuri what happened?" Serena asked, jumping in between him and Yuto.

Yuri was gritting his teeth, trying not to show pain as he clutched his arm. Blood was seeping through his fingers. When Serena peeled his fingers away, there was a three-inch-long gash down his arm. Nearly everyone gasped.

"B-But, how?" Yuto stammered "You were standing in the middle of the corridor! Y-You...!" He gulped "You were standing right next to me!"

* * *

The second group was wary about entering Ruri's room to look for Yugo, since the younger Kurosaki sibling's body was still in there.

"Let's get this over with quickly" Shun breathed, not looking forward to disturbing his sister's body at all "Reira, Dennis, you two can stand in the doorway. Serena said they covered up her body, but…"

They nodded with understanding.

The rest of the group tore through the room quickly, carefully stepping over Ruri. A few minutes later, they exited the room, having still not found Yugo.

"I'm not sure what to say" Yuzu sighed "What do we do if we can't find Yugo?"

"We shouldn't give up, but…" Shun frowned "It's getting late, and we're all tired. After we finish up searching the house again, we might just have to all stay in a room and hope for the best. Yugo is tough. If he's not dead, he might be able to hold his own. Besides, if we're all together, it's not like anyone could go out to kill him anyway."

"Well" Rin admitted, worrying her lip with her teeth "If we can't find him, I doubt the killer could either."

"But there's also the possibility that, maybe, Yugo is the killer himself?" Allen suggested, eyeing Rin nervously.

"We shouldn't make any assumptions yet until we locate him" Shun suggested quickly before Rin lost it "Let's continue looking."

Before they could continue walking, the lights shut off, leaving the seven of them in the dark.

Reira squeaked and clutched Shun's hand.

Yuzu gasped "The power went out!"

"Oh no! I couldn't tell!" Sora shot back sarcastically.

"What do we do now?!" Dennis panicked.

"Don't panic!" Rin ordered "Just stand still!"

"We can't just stand in the dark!" Allen yelled.

"Ooph!"

Thud!

"Huh?"

"What was that?"

"What's going on?"

The lights switched back on. Everyone stared at one another.

"Wait, there's only six of us" Rin observed.

"O-Oh god!" Dennis gasped, looking down at the floor "H-He's…"

Everyone followed his gaze and everyone jumped and gasped in surprise.

"N-No… No!" Reira gasped, clutching Shun's hand even tighter.

Sora was lying on the floor, facedown, a butcher knife stuck two of the vertebra in his lower spine, a second stab wound higher up his back. He coughed up blood twice before the light faded from his eyes.


	8. Judgement

**Judgement**

"Alright, which one of you attacked me?!" Yuri demanded, batting Serena's hand away as he tried to stem the bleeding with his own hand, eyes glaring at them all with hostility.

"I-I don't understand" Yuto breathed "You was right there next to me. Right there!"

"The lights were only out for a few seconds!" Sayaka yelped.

"I hate to say this, but the killer has to be among us" Serena said, glancing intently at everyone.

"Gee, I figured that out myself!" Yuri snapped "One of you better come forward or I will personally rip the clothes off of your bodies until I find the bastard with the knife myself!"

"E-Either that or…" Sawatari coughed awkwardly "That, or it was…Yugo."

"Why do you guys keep accusing Yugo?" Yuya demanded as Yuto offered Yuri his tie to use as a make-shift bandage for his arm "We don't even know where he is! I highly doubt that within the few seconds that the lights were out, he could have sped past us, attacked Yuri, then ran off without us even hearing him!"

"Fine, then let's start accusing you!" Serena decided "You tried to kill Yuri and missed in the dark!"

"What?" Yuya stared at her, shocked and hurt "How could you—!"

"Guys, stop!" Sayaka cut in between them. With the new attack, tempers were flaring and the last thing they needed was an all-out brawl "Someone else was attacked, and Yuri was lucky he wasn't _killed_! We can't keep fighting like thi—!"

Sayaka was cut off by Serena's phone ringing. Still glaring at Yuya, Serena received the call and put it on speaker.

"What do you want, Dennis?" she asked, voice scarily calm.

"Oh thank god, please tell me you're all alive!" Dennis sounded like he'd been punched and was struggling to get his breath back.

"What do you mean, we're all alive, of course we are" Serena frowned "Did something happen to you guys too?"

"Y-Yeah! Someone stabbed Sora when the lights went out!"

Everyone in Yuto's group gasped.

"W-what?!" Yuya stuttered "N-no way!"

"Is he dead?" Sawatari asked, all the colour draining from his face.

"Yuzu says he is" Dennis confirmed, sounding like he was about to cry "Please tell me you found Yugo."

"No, but…" Yuto considered his words carefully, looking at Yuri as he did so "Somebody attacked Yuri."

* * *

Both groups reunited again in the foyer on the first floor, which was the original plan in the first place, but no one realised that they would be down another person: Sora. Yuya hadn't stopped crying since hearing the news, moping that he should've been there to watch out for him, that he had already lost Gongenzaka and now he had lost Sora too. Even Yuzu found it hard to comfort him as he held tightly onto her hand with the intention of probably never letting go. Not that anyone could blame him – his friends were dropping like flies around him.

The remaining twelve people, these excluded Yugo whose whereabouts in the mansion were still unknown, stood in silence for a few good minutes, the only sounds being choked sobs from Yuya and little hissing noises of pain from Yuri. No one had any idea what to do now. Even staying in a tight group didn't make any difference. Another person was dead but with this happening, a few more things were evident.

"It's obvious now that, whether Yugo is a killer or not, there are two killers among us" Shun decided "At least."

"Yeah" Rin agreed "There's no way that one person alone could have attacked two people on completely different floors within the fifteen to twenty seconds the lights were out."

"Which points out, how in the world did the lights go out in the first place?" Serena asked "Could it have been the blizzard?"

"Doubtful" Yuto shook his head "The timing was too perfect. Besides, if it was the bad weather, the power probably would have been out longer."

"So it was timed?" Allen questioned.

"I'm sure it was" Yuto nodded "Sawatari, do you know where the breakers are in this mansion?"

"Er, I think so" Sawatari scratched his head with his free hand. His other was holding Sayaka's, as she refused to let go of it. "It's on the other side of the house, near the garage. We all gonna go together?"

"Yeah" Yuto nodded "As cheesy as this sounds, I think we should all hold hands with at least one other person."

Agreement was the general consensus.

On the order, everyone began linking hands. Shun and Yuto held hands while Sawatari and Sayaka did the same. Yuzu continued to hold Yuya's left hand and Yuri held Yuya's right hand since his right arm was out of action ("I'm not holding your hand!" "Just shut up and hold it Yuri!"). Serena kept tight a hold of Dennis' right hand whilst holding Reira's left one, seemingly terrified she was going to lose someone else whilst she was powerless to do anything. And Rin and Allen just awkwardly held each other's wrists. Sawatari and Sayaka took the lead as they walked through the many rooms of the first floor toward the opposite side of the house.

When they reached the breaker room, Shun and Sawatari checked the main power switch.

"Everything looks fine to me" Shun announced "My guess was that maybe someone came down here and flipped the switch themselves then turned it back on, but if that was the case…"

"That would mean that there are three killers!" Sayaka gasped.

"Either that, or Yugo is just the sneaky accomplice for the other two" Sawatari commented.

"What's with the wire?" Dennis asked "Is that supposed to be there?"

"What wire?" Shun frowned "There's no wire. Stop trying to trick me, Fusion Scum."

"No, wait a minute" Sawatari inspected the breaker closer "There _is_ a small wire attached to this main switch."

"Huh?" Shun looked at where Sawatari was pointing "He's right!" Shun removed the barely noticeable wire from the switch. "It's been yanked off. And there's a small rock attached to the end of it."

"Look at this!" Yuzu called, directing everyone's attention to a small table under the breaker. "There's a candle here, and something else is melted next to it!"

"The other end of the wire" Shun realised "This was set up."

"At some point, someone put a candle in here under this wire, which was also tied to this rock piece and when the wire melted, the wire with the rock piece forced the switch down and turned off the lights" Sawatari explained.

"So anyone could have set this up?" Serena asked.

"But wait, how did the lights come back on?" Allen asked, quite proud of himself for thinking of the question.

"If there's a power outage, the backup generator automatically turns the power back on after about a few seconds" Sawatari reached for the main switch. "So this is actually still turned off. With any luck the backup generator should keep working throughout the night, in case the killer tries to turn this off again. But with the blizzard…"

"S-Sawatari?" Sayaka stuttered as he flipped the dead switch back on. He glanced over at her.

"What is it, 'Yaka?" he raised her eyebrow. Her shocked expression was troubling him.

"Sawatari...aren't you one of the few people who know that?" Sayaka whimpered.

Everyone was now facing the birthday boy.

"W-What?!" he spluttered "Are you…accusing me of the murders?!"

"Well" Yuto frowned uneasily "Besides Shun and maybe a few others, who else would know that? Besides, weren't you the one who came up with the idea to split us up into two groups to look for Yugo by using cards?"

"Hang on a sec, what about the other killer?!" Sawatari demanded, outraged at being accused of murdering people at his own party "If I'm one of the killers, who is the other?! Can you really just prove that I'm a killer just because I know about how the breakers work in my own home?!"

Everyone nervously glanced at one another. No one spoke up.

"We're all beginning to turn on one another" Yuya said solemnly "It's hard not to when at least two of us are murderers…"

The room fell deathly silent. Yuzu began crying and clenching her arms.

"Yuzu?" Rin turned to face her "Are you okay?"

"Let's move to the kitchen and get her something to drink" Yuri suggested, sick of bickering and crying women "And I'm sure we could sit down and take a break. Maybe get the tears to stop before they give me an even worse headache."

* * *

Per Yuri's suggestion, the group made their way to the kitchen. Sawatari grabbed a glass and filled it with water from the sink for Yuzu. Yuri paid close attention to him as he filled the glass.

"What?" Sawatari took notice of this and voiced his discomfort toward the injured boy's stern glance. "Do you think I would slip something harmful in her drink to kill her?"

"I'm just keeping a watchful eye" Yuri told him.

"If I wanted to kill Yuzu, why didn't I just do it when we were all split up? Huh? Since you guys seem to think that I'm one of the murderers and all!" Sawatari was obviously very upset, even glaring at Yuto and Sayaka. Then he turned his attention back toward Yuri. "What about you?! You've been pretty bossy since all of this started! I may have had the idea to use cards to split us into groups, but I didn't choose them directly! I wouldn't put it past _you_ to do something as sick as this!"

The hand attached to Yuri's uninjured left arm grabbed the collar of Sawatari's jacket, not unlike what Shun had done to Yuto earlier, and hissed: "Say that again, Prissy Boy! There's no way I could-"

"Is there now?" Rin put in, looking up at them both "You both keep accusing Yuya or Yugo of being a murderer, but you could be saying that just to keep the spotlight away from you!" On a roll now, she spun around to face Sayaka. "And what about you?! You've been pointing fingers at them as well! Isn't Yuya one of your best friends? And how come you're still here when your precious best friend Ruri was the first to get butchered?!"

"W-What?" Sayaka gasped, utterly horrified "R-Rin! I-I—"

Seeing she was about to cry, Reira split from Shun and threw his arms around her waist in an attempt to hug her comfortingly.

"And what about you, who got spared when your brother was hacked to death in the same room as you!" Rin turned her rage on Reira, the little boy's legs shaking. She then rounded on Serena. "And you! How come you're always at the scene of the crime whenever someone's murdered? Ruri, then Reiji, then Gongenzaka and you were even there when your Fusion buddy over there got a chunk of his arm taken out! Not to mention any time someone brings up Yugo you're pretty quick to change the subject!"

"Hey, don't you be trying to pin this on me just because your boy-toy's out of action!" Serena shot back.

"You all just think he's running around killing people like some kind of psycho!" Rin raged.

"But you seem to be defending him so much!" Yuya remarked, jumping in "Ruri, Reiji, Gongenzaka and Sora are all dead, but you only seem to be concerned about Yugo! With him missing, the both of you could have done this!"

"Are you serious?!" Rin stepped closer to the boy, forcing him to lower his chin to look her in the eye as she was shorter than him "I can't believe you're pointing fingers at me! You said you saw the murderer twice, but was that really the case?! Or maybe you murdered Ruri and Gongenzaka yourself and then hurt yourself on purpose in the bathroom so that we could find you!"

"Why you—!" Yuya – very uncharacteristically and in a move that completely blindsided everyone – suddenly threw a fist at Rin, Rin leaning back to avoid the punch.

"Hey!" Yuto lunged at Yuya and pinned him to the ground while Shun grabbed Rin's arms from behind.

"Get the hell off of me!" Yuya flailed beneath Yuto, clearly angry beyond anything any of them had seen in him before if he was resorting to swearing, but Yuto refused to move.

Yuya couldn't complain anymore after that though because Yuzu brought her fan down on top of his head.

"No, you listen to me!" she yelled "This is not the time to be fighting! Shut up and calm down!"

Rin didn't yell. She just kind of made an unnerving rattling noise in the back of her throat as she shoved Shun backward.

"Alright! I get it! I'm done, I'm done! Just let me go!" Yuya stopped moving, and Yuto finally got up. Yuzu offered to help him off the ground, but Yuya ducked away from her. It appeared the deaths of most of his friends were getting to him. Everyone was just praying Berserk Mode wasn't going to be coming out any time soon.

"Guys, us fighting isn't making things any easier" Allen finally deemed it safe to voice his thoughts. He moved over to Sayaka and put his arm around her shoulder "This is pointless."

"It's hard to stay focused on much else when we know that at least one of us is a killer" Dennis also spoke up "I don't know what to say about Yugo. And I don't need any death glares from you, Greenie."

That last sentence had obviously been directed at Rin, who had glanced at Dennis sharply for just the mention of Yugo's name.

"Well, I'm not sure if there's any point in asking what we should do now…" Serena yawned.

Sayaka yawned right after her as if cued. "What time is it?"

Yuri glanced at his watch. "Close to two."

"I'm so tired…" Reira slumped to the floor, Serena sitting down next to him as Reira had left Sayaka with Allen to go back to holding her hand. Dennis let go so he wouldn't be dragged down with them.

"Without knowing where Yugo is and the idea that there are two killers left in this mansion, well, that makes the idea of sleep impossible" Shun grumbled "Unless several of us stay awake and maybe switch in an hour or something."

"I'm not tired" Sawatari shrugged.

"I'm staying awake" Rin said immediately "All night if I have to."

"Same here" Yuya nodded.

"Sayaka and Reira need sleep the most" Yuto decided "Who else is really tired?" Dennis, Serena and Allen all raised their hands. "Okay, so Sayaka, Reira, Serena, Allen and Dennis will sleep first. That leaves Shun, Sawatari, Yuri, Rin, Yuya, Yuzu and myself to stay on guard. Are we gonna just stay in here? I don't think it would be comfortable."

"I don't want to be the one to suggest anything else, because I really don't want any fingers pointed at me" Dennis said, holding up his hands as though defending himself from an attack "But we could stay in my room. It's one of the biggest rooms on the third floor, and there are plenty of blankets and pillows so we can relax and be comfortable. We need to remain in one place until morning."

"That's fine" Yuto agreed "Lead the way. And hold hands with someone else."

Because of the previous arguments, the hand-holding groups changed. Sayaka, Reira and Serena all held hands. Dennis was holding onto Yuri's elbow, Yuri's free hand clenched over his injury, whilst Allen looked like he wanted to break free of Rin's grip and run for the hills, as she was still trembling with rage and worry from the fight. Yuya was holding Yuzu's hand with Yuto holding on to his other whilst Sawatari and Shun was awkwardly holding wrists.

Some people shuddered as they passed the second floor, where Ruri and Sora's bodies were. At least Dennis' room was right next to the stairs on the third floor, so they didn't have to go near Reira's room where Reiji's body still was.

"Okay, we're here" Dennis announced, letting go of Yuri's elbow. He reached for the doorknob and turned it. The group stepped inside while Dennis flipped the light switch.

There was no time to relax. Dennis may have been tired, but his eyes widened upon the sight before him. Reira and Sayaka both screamed behind him.

"Oh, here we go" Yuri groaned.

Sure, they had found Yugo. But not alive. He had been killed different to the others, this time with heavy bruising around his neck where his killer had prolonged his death by strangling him.


	9. Light

**Light**

"YUGO!" Rin shoved Allen and Dennis aside and ran over to Yugo's body.

"Rin, don't touch him!" Yuto warned her.

Rin dropped to her knees just short of him, but paused before attempting to grab his arm.

"Y-Yugo!" Rin didn't even attempt to hold back her tears.

Even at her accusations toward him, Yuya couldn't help but grab Rin's shoulders from behind, kneeling down behind her and placing his forehead on her shoulder. He was crying with her. Yuzu too was in tears, gripping the nearest thing for support, which just so happened to be Yuto.

"But how?" Sawatari asked, glancing around the room in shock and confusion "The first time we searched for Yugo, he wasn't in this room. We checked this room, right? _Right_?!"

He turned to Serena for confirmation.

"Of course we did" Serena nodded.

"T-Then how…did he end up h-here…?" Sayaka turned away from Yugo's body, trying not to throw up. Shun, who was holding Yuzu's glass of water for her, handed it to Sayaka, which she sipped carefully. She felt weak and almost fell to her knees, but Reira did his best to steady her until Allen moved over to help.

"Sayaka! Are you okay?" Allen asked, slowly setting her on the floor.

"W-We can't stay…in here…" she breathed "C-Can we go to another room…?"

"Sure thing" Shun agreed, looping his arm around Sayaka's waist so he could support her as they walked "Grab a blanket to put over the body."

That was towards Dennis.

"O-Okay…" Dennis stepped over to the large cupboard and reached for a red blanket sitting on a low shelf. He unfolded it and laid it completely over Yugo's body. Rin had continued to stare at the blanket, refusing to look away.

"Rin…" Serena knelt down next to her, taking one of her hands whilst Yuya took the other "We have to go…"

Rin was reluctant to move, but subconsciously knew that staring at Yugo wasn't going to bring him back to life. She finally stood up and walked over to the door, not looking back.

"Let's go" she said in monotone. She refused to look at anyone.

The remaining people: Shun, Yuto, Yuri, Dennis, Yuzu, Yuya, Rin, Serena, Sayaka, Allen, Reira and Sawatari, made their way along the third floor into Gongenzaka's room, upon the orders of Shun. After all, it wasn't like Gongenzaka was going to be needing it any time soon. Yuzu and Yuya didn't particularly want to go into their friend's room, knowing he was lying dead in the main room downstairs, but they did agree none the less.

Everyone tried to keep themselves distracted as they passed Reira's room, where Yuto's bloody handprint was still visible on the doorknob, by reminding themselves that Gongenzaka's room was at the very end of the corridor, as far away from the stairs as it could be, making it probably the safest room on the floor.

Yuzu, the last person to enter the room, locked the door behind her, causing everyone to turn around.

"Why did you lock the door?" Sawatari asked immediately.

"Um…" Yuzu looked around, then back toward the door. She unlocked it. "S-Sorry. I want to think that the murderers are running around the mansion, but now that Yugo is dead…"

Everyone glanced around uneasily at one another. It was bad enough thinking one of the killers was in their group, but now with Yugo dead it was obvious that out of the last twelve people alive, two of them had murdered their other friends. And they were all in this room…

"Well, no more accusing Yugo of being a murderer" Yuri said, mostly to Rin. He felt a little apologetic, considering he knew Yugo pretty well and had still accused him; but knowing that any of their friends could be murderers, it was hard to trust anyone.

"So…tired…" Reira yawned, and Dennis was wiping his eyes next to him.

"You guys can get some sleep, now" Shun offered, helping lead Sayaka over to the bed "Man, this bed is huge! I think all of you can fit on it."

Reira, Sayaka and Serena lay on the bed side by side. Dennis and Allen rested horizontally at the foot of the bed.

"Wake us up in an hour or so" Serena told Yuri "We'll switch over."

"Sure" he agreed.

Sayaka turned on a desk lamp on the side table next to her so that Yuzu could switch off the main light.

Everyone on the bed fell asleep quickly. Yuto envied them for a moment. He wasn't too tired, but he had to stay awake and continue being haunted by the thoughts of his friends' deaths. He hoped that they were too tired to dream; he was worried that one of them would wake up from a nightmare.

Yuya and Sawatari sat by the window, watching the snow blow ferociously and listening to the loud howl of the wind.

"We still never got hold of the police, did we?" Yuzu pondered, sitting against the edge of the bed, on the floor.

Sawatari shook his head. "Even if we did, I doubt they would even be able to make it through this awful weather. Someone up there hates us."

"Bet it's the Professor" Yuri muttered, leaning against the wall.

Rin sat down on the edge of the bed, staring at the window with a sigh "Yugo always liked snow..."

No one said anything.

"I can't believe someone would do this…" Shun growled "Why?! Why would someone do this?!"

He slammed his fist on the wall in frustration.

"I don't know" Yuya ran a hand through his hair and clenched his fist "But when I find out who it is, I won't even give them a chance to tell me why they did it! They're gonna pay for killing Gongenzaka and Sora and everyone else!"

Crash!

All of those awake jumped. A loud noise came from outside of the bedroom.

"W-What was that?!" Sawatari flew to his feet.

"It came from the hallway, I think!" Yuya squeaked, half-walking half-jumping over to the door and putting his ear to it "I don't hear anything else."

"But how can that be?" Yuto wondered "We're the only ones left in this house! Alive, at least…"

"Does that mean…there's an outsider in the mansion?!" Yuzu squeaked.

"What should we do?" Yuya asked, actually looking a little nervous "We can't leave this room, but…"

"There's a possibility that someone else in this house is killing our friends and trying to frame us!" Rin insisted.

"That could be true" Yuri shrugged "I think we should check it out."

"But we can't leave them!" Shun pointed out, pointing to his friends asleep on the bed "We should just lock the door and stay here!"

"There's seven of us" Yuya pointed out "How about three of us have a look around and the other four can stay here and watch the rest?"

"F-Fine" Shun didn't sound sure about the idea, but nodded anyway "I'm staying here."

"So am I" Sawatari raised his hand, then quickly putting it down again.

"I'll go" Yuri decided with a 'humph', standing up fully as he had been leaning against the wall.

"I don't think that's a good idea, you're still injured" Yuto pointed out "I'll go. Yuzu, you've got a flashlight, yes?"

"Well, yes" Yuzu's hand went towards her pocket "But-"

"Well you should come too" Yuto decided, cutting her off "You, Yuya and I, we'll check it out. It might just be nothing – maybe our footsteps disturbed a lamp and it's fallen over now or something."

"Alright, you've got a point. I'm not scared" Yuzu agreed, Yuya standing up to join them.

"Great, so I'm left babysitting with Birthday Boy and the two most unstable people in this dimension, wonderful" Yuri rolled his eyes.

"Please, just don't argue" Yuto sighed "It's not worth it. We'll be right back, we're just gonna go look around real quick."

Shun didn't look very happy with this plan, but decided not to push it.

"Be careful" Sawatari warned.

"Will do" Yuya grinned at him, giving him a thumbs-up as he left with Yuzu and Yuto. It was for Sawatari's sake – he was actually terrified.

The trio slowly began making their way down the hallway. Yuto had the idea to have Yuzu walk beside them and Yuya walk backward to watch behind them so that no one could sneak up and attack them.

That worked out well for a few seconds. Then, the lights shut off for the second time that night.

"Aww, no way!" Yuya panicked "What now?!"

"Flashlight!" Yuto bellowed.

Almost immediately, Yuzu turned the flashlight on and shone it on the boys. Yuto raised his hand and grumbled for Yuzu to direct the beam at someone else, so she pointed it at the wall instead.

"Won't the backup generator turn back on after a few seconds?" Yuzu asked.

They stood still for a few moments and waited for it to happen. But once a minute passed, they grew confused.

"W-What?" Yuya tried not to panic and failed "The light didn't turn back on!"

In an attempt to comfort him, Yuzu offered for him to hold the flashlight, which he all but snatched out of her hands.

"Sawatari did mention the backup generator could fail in the blizzard" Yuto tapped his foot against the ground and folded his arms "Good for the killers – I guess they really wanted those lights to stay off."

"What now?" Yuzu asked, also worried, leaving Yuto the only one in the 'staying calm-ish' group "It's dangerous to be wandering around here in the dark!"

"We should at least find out what fell in the hallway so we can determine if there really is someone else running around this mansion or if it fell on its own" Yuto humphed "If someone's bold enough to take on three of us, they can try!"

He was sick of hiding. He was a former Resistance solider – he fought people face-to-face, not cowering in the dark.

"Y-Yuto, I'm not much of a fighter…" Yuya was shaking, the flashlight beam waving in every direction.

"Do you want me to hold that again?" Yuzu offered, holding out her hand.

"N-No!" Yuya shrieked "I feel better protected with this with me!"

"Okay, okay!" Yuzu waved her hands in defence "Well, let's keep looking."

The trio stayed relatively close to one another, since Yuya was the only source of light they had and Yuto kept on tripping over things. They walked in silence for a while, beginning to wonder how long this hallway really was.

"Man, I didn't realise how long the third floor hallway was" Yuto sighed "It's never-ending. Surely we must be near the stairs by n-OW!"

"Yuto?!" Yuzu squeaked, and Yuya immediately swung the flashlight around.

"Oww!" Yuto held up one foot and was nursing it with his fingers "Who's been leaving glass on the floor?"

Yuzu and Yuya knelt down, shining the light toward Yuto's feet. He had stepped on broken pieces of a vase.

"I think this is what fell" Yuya examined the vase pieces "I can't believe we heard it crash from all the way down the hallway. Where did it fall from?"

Yuzu looked up, snatching the flashlight and shining it against the wall trying to find the source. "I think there's a shelf up there. But that's pretty high up…"

"Hey, do you hear that?" Yuya asked out-of-the-blue.

"Hear what?" Yuzu grunted, staring up at the shelf and wondering if maybe Shun could reach up there. Maybe someone slightly taller than her jumping could reach it?

Could Yuto have been right in that just the vibrations of just them walking had dislodged it, rather than an unseen assailant? She wanted to believe that was true but…

She winced on instinct as a loud noise just beside her nearly shattered her eardrums.

"Aaaaaaahhhhh!"

"Yuto?!" Yuya looked around frantically "What happened?! Yuzu, shine the light down here!"

"Did he step on the vase again?" Yuzu turned the light downward and his eyes widened at what he saw.

"Y-Yuto!" Yuya yelped "N-No!"

Yuto lay dead on his side, a knife through his neck killing him all but instantly.

"Oh my god!" Yuya shrieked "H-How?! I was right here! He was standing right next to me and I didn't feel a thing!"

"Does that mean the killer is close?!" Yuzu shone the flashlight every which direction, trying to remain calm "Did somebody get out of the room?!"

"We have to go back to Gongenzaka's room!" Yuya insisted, practically screaming and hyperventilating "Now!"

He grabbed Yuzu's wrist and sprinted down the hallway back toward the bedroom. Yuzu could hardly keep up, she kept stumbling over her own feet.

"C'mon, Yuzu!" Yuya cried, all but dragging her.

Yuzu couldn't find any words to say back to him.

The two kept running, reaching the bedroom pretty quickly. They burst into the room, slammed the door shut, and locked the door.

"Yuya? Yuzu?" Rin, Sawatari, Shun and Yuri were immediately at the pair's side, the two having collapsed onto the floor trying to catch their breath. Having slammed the door stirred those who were still asleep, a few of them were sitting up and trying to figure out what was going on.

"Wait, where's Yuto?" Shun asked.

Yuya was having a hard time looking him in the eyes.

"K-Kurosaki" he huffed and puffed "Y-Yuto is dead."


	10. Hunger

**Hunger**

No one in the room said anything. Maybe everyone was just so used to people dying every half an hour that no one was surprised anymore.

Sayaka began to tear up and covered her eyes. Serena rubbed the girl's back and frowned.

Reira stirred slightly, but didn't wake up, instead rolling over to rest his head on Serena's thigh with a quiet moment of: "Nii-Sama."

"What? How?" Shun asked, his throat having gone dry. First Ruri, now Yuto. This couldn't be happening to them – not after all they'd gone through to get to this point. "Weren't the three of you together?"

"Yeah, but Yuto stepped on the vase that fell over!" Yuya explained through gasps and gulps "And we heard something and then…I don't know! It was too dark! I don't know what happened!"

He pressed his palms over his eyes in frustration.

"Does that mean that there is someone else in the house?" Sawatari questioned, looking alarmed at the idea.

"This room and the next one share a bathroom – maybe someone snuck out that way and we just didn't notice? I mean, we were all so worried we weren't really paying attention, and someone could've snuck back in when Yuya and Yuya burst through the door" Rin pointed out, looking at the bathroom than Gongenzaka's room shared with Shun's.

"I'm about to lose my mind" Allen shook his head "We should've listened to Kaito and not come."

"We need to get the hell out of here!" Dennis yelped, jumping off the bed as though it was poisoned.

"Not in this weather" Rin glanced out the window at the raging blizzard outside.

"Have we figured out why we haven't been able to get hold of the police yet?" Yuzu asked.

Sawatari frowned. "I've tried more than ten times. No one is answering. I can try again, but it's probably futile."

"Wait" Yuri put his hand on his chin in a thoughtful manner "Is it just that the blizzard has cut the power lines or that the phone rings and no one answers it?"

Sawatari's eyes widened. "The phone continues to ring…"

Everyone glanced at one another in confusion and shock. Something was off. Very off.

"That would mean that no one is there!" Sayaka squeaked.

"But someone's _always_ at the police station" Yuzu pointed out "They can't just not have someone there."

"This is wrong" Shun frowned "That must mean that something happened at the police station."

"Well, I'm pretty sure this blizzard would prevent them from even being able to help us out" Rin added.

"This is really bad!" Yuya began to tremble "We can't just stay here! These killers are picking us off one by one!"

"We're all tired, and I don't know about you guys, but I'm getting pretty hungry" Dennis admitted, holding his stomach.

"Dennis, is now really the time?" Yuri groaned.

"I'm kinda hungry, too" Sawatari agreed with Dennis "It's been several hours since we've eaten anything."

"We don't need to worry about that!" Allen grinned, patting Sayaka's shoulder "We have an expert chef right here!"

Sayaka went red with embarrassment, but Allen gave her a grin of confidence.

"Is that a good idea, though?" Yuri asked, folding his arms "To have her cook for us? What if Sayaka is one of the killers? She could easily poison our food."

"We'll just have to have a few of us watch her very closely" Shun decided "I don't want to have to feel like I can't trust Sayaka, but if it's what we have to do…"

Sayaka shook her head. "No, that's fine. I understand. Let's bring some pillows and blankets and make our way to the kitchen. We might as well get comfortable; we might be in there awhile."

* * *

At Sayaka's suggestion, everyone lined up and held hands with one another, to prevent another Yuto accident from occurring. Sawatari led the group with the flashlight, and they all made it safely to the kitchen.

"Wait!" Rin shouted after they locked all the doors to the kitchen "We're in the kitchen. We should check for knifes and any other silverware that could harm us."

"The knifes are on top of the refrigerator" Sawatari explained, shining the flashlight on the fridge.

Shun, the tallest man in the room, reached for the wooden box the knives were kept in, but his eyes widen with surprise when he noticed none of them were in there.

"What?" he checked the box again. "How many knives were in here?"

"I don't know" Sawatari shook his head "Maybe about ten?"

"I'm guessing the killer took them ahead of time and has been using them to kill our friends" Yuya suggested.

"Yeah, but if that was the case, wouldn't the rest still be on the killer's body?" Allen suggested "Do we need to do some kinda strip search?"

"I'm pretty sure the girls would have a hard time hiding a bunch of knives in their dresses" Yuri glanced at Sayaka, Serena, Yuzu and Rin. The latter three all glared at the look he was giving them.

"I mean, if we absolutely had to, I'm sure we could show you that we don't have any on us…" Sayaka blushed "But I hope we don't have to resort to that…"

The boys nervously glanced at one another. No one wanted to be the pervert in this situation. Even Yuri looked a little uncomfortable.

"Maybe that won't be necessary…" Shun shifted awkwardly.

"Well, most of the boys have already taken off their coats" Rin pointed out "Honestly, I'm pretty positive that it would difficult to hide so many knives on your own body."

"Besides, we're all right here" Yuzu added "If anyone were to up and stab one of us, the rest of us would obviously figure out who the killer is."

"True" Shun agreed.

"I'm hungry" Reira finally spoke up.

"Me too, little man, let's get something to eat" Dennis agreed, ruffling Reira's hair with a grin.

"Why don't we go ahead and start cooking?" Sayaka began to tie her long flapping sleeves so they wouldn't get in the way "Anyone want to help out?"

"I will" Yuzu raised her hand.

"I can help, too" Dennis stretched out his arms.

"We're all dead" Yuri joked, receiving a laugh from Serena and a cheeky wink from Dennis

The group began looking through the cupboards and cabinets, looking for things to eat. Of course the place was packed with food, so they had a wide selection to choose from.

Sayaka decided to make some chicken and rice. She didn't want to make anything too extravagant for fear of the idea of someone possibly finding a way to poison the food, just in case worse came to worse and someone actually tried it. Dennis prepared the rice while the girls began making the chicken. Yuri, Shun and Serena watched over the three chefs while Yuya, Rin, Reira, Sawatari and Allen rested in the corner and waited patiently to be fed.

"The food's almost ready!" Yuzu announced "Can I get someone to help out with setting the table?"

"Sure" Rin shrugged and she, Sawatari and Allen stood up and prepared to set the table.

Sawatari got the glasses, Allen took care of the plates and Rin handled the silverware. Since the dining room was too wide an area for them to feel comfortable in, they decided to remain in the kitchen. There was a decently sized table near the back of the kitchen, which at most held eight people. Sawatari, Allen and Rin set the rest of the dinnerware at the bar area by the fridge, which conveniently seated three.

"Okay, food's ready, guys!" Sayaka called out.

The group grabbed random plates and each served themselves platefuls of warm chicken and rice. There was plenty for everyone. Serena, Sayaka and Yuri sat at the bar area while the others sat at the table.

"Wow, this is really good!" Sawatari grinned after trying both the rice and chicken.

"Thanks" Dennis, who was sitting opposite him, smiled "But Sayaka's the master chef."

"Yeah, but you're the one who made the rice by yourself" Yuzu praised him, giving him a pat on the back, and Dennis shrugged his thanks.

The group didn't talk much amongst themselves. There wasn't much to say. They were eating whilst six of their friends were dead, their bodies scattered around the mansion. Everyone tried not to think about it and did their best to keep their food down.

Ten minutes later, almost everyone was finished eating.

"Yum, that was so good!" Rin smiled as she rubbed her stomach "I'm full!"

"Yeah!" Yuya grinned "That was really good food!"

He gave Sayaka a thumbs up and she smiled back in return.

Shun glanced at Reira noticing that he hadn't eaten much of his rice. Actually, he had some pieces of chicken left too. "Reira, why aren't you eating?"

"…"

Shun looked at him steadily, noticing that he was staring straight ahead with a look of horror on his face. "Reira, are you okay?"

Maybe the traumatic night had finally caught up with him? It was affecting them all, just most of them were trying to bury it.

Reira clenched his teeth and grabbed his jacket, clenching his fist near his heart. He huffed loudly like he was trying to say something, but leaned forward and bashed his head on the table instead.

"Reira?!" Shun jumped up in shock, and the rest of the table turned toward the seven-year-old.

Reira didn't raise his head.

"Oh no" Yuzu rushed to Reira's side "Don't tell me—!"

"What's going on?" Sayaka turned around and asked, but suddenly the plates on the bar's counter clanked loudly. She spun back around and noticed Serena had her head on the counter.

"Serena?" Yuri, who was closest to her, shook her shoulder. "Hey, Serena?"

No answer.

"Shun!" Sayaka yelped "Shun, something's wrong with Serena!"

Shun heard Sayaka calling out and began to sprint over to her side when, for a third time, everyone heard the dinnerware rattle as a third head collided with the table. But it didn't stay there, for this person fell out of their chair and onto the floor.

"Allen!" Yuya jumped up, as he had been sitting next the boy.

"W-What's going on?!" Yuzu asked, now trying to shake Reira awake.

"I-I don't know!" Sayaka panicked, not sure whether to shake Serena or not.

"Please don't tell me…" Shun muttered, kneeling down next to Allen and placing his fingers on Allen's throat.

"What are you doing?" Rin asked him.

Shun removed his fingers from Allen's neck and sighed disappointedly.

"Guys" he said solemnly as he stood up and faced the group "I think that Reira, Serena and Allen have been poisoned."


	11. Fell

**Fell**

"N-No!" Sayaka face turned pale as she stared at Serena's dead body "Why?! WHY?!"

"Poisoned?" Yuya echoed "Does that mean…"

He glanced over at the pot of rice and the large plate with the remaining pieces of chicken.

"We didn't poison the food!" Dennis yelled, near slamming his fist on the table.

"No way!" Sayaka cried, rushing over to the pot.

"Don't touch anything!" Yuri yelled at her just as Dennis went after her to inspect the pot "Even if the rice isn't poisoned, maybe the pot is!"

"He's right!" Shun ordered "No one touch anything else! Utensils, food, nothing!"

Everyone stood still for a moment, not knowing what to do. Everyone had finished eating, so would there be another victim?

"I-I think if we were poisoned, we would have already collapsed" Yuzu pointed out.

"Yeah" Rin agreed "The three of them all fell over at the same time. It's already been a few minutes. I don't think anyone else has ingested any poison."

"Are we so sure that they've actually been poisoned, though?" Sawatari asked.

"It's our only guess right now" Shun knelt down next to Allen and examined his face "He's drooling. I'm assuming the three of them have taken poison."

"But how did they get poison and neither of us did?" Sayaka asked.

"Maybe they weren't specifically targeted" Yuzu pointed out "Maybe they found a way to poison something else that wasn't the food. I mean, Serena helped prepare the food and she's dead. That means any of us could have been victims."

"There's also a chance that only traces of the food were poisoned…" Yuri added, turning to face Sayaka and Dennis, who were standing close together, looking at everyone else warily.

"Yuri, we don't have any proof that they did anything to the food" Yuya reminded him "We can't keep accusing one another. There's only eight of us left."

"And any one of us is the murderer…" Sayaka whimpered.

The room fell deathly silent.

"W-Well…" Yuya finally broke the awkward silence "What do we do now?"

"I don't even think there's a single safe place left in this mansion" Rin muttered, fidgeting with her collar.

"That's because the killer is among us" Yuri folded his arms, glancing between the remaining seven people besides himself.

"Well, what are we going to do?" Sawatari asked, looking very pale "Stand here and stare at each other until this blizzard passes?"

"I don't want to stay in here next to three of our friends' dead bodies…" Dennis slowly glanced at Allen's dead body and turned away.

"I don't either" Shun shuddered, looking at Reira's slumped over body "Let's just go find another room to rest in. Lock the doors and not leave the room until morning. So if anyone has to use the bathroom, we better all go as a group now."

Everyone nodded in agreement. They all linked hands, deciding to walk in pairs again. Shun and Sayaka lead the group together with the flashlight, followed by Sawatari, Yuzu and Dennis who all held hands, with Rin and Yuri each holding Yuya's hands bringing up the rear. They made their way out of the kitchen and began walking.

"Where should we go?" Yuya asked.

"Well, downstairs doesn't seem to be working well for us" Shun paused to consider his options.

"Why don't we go to the fourth floor and find a room up there?" Sawatari suggested "My room should be okay."

"That sounds fine" Shun agreed "We can just use the bathroom in your room if we need to go."

They found the stairwells and began making their way up. The only sounds they could hear were their anxious heavy breathing and the creaking of the stairs as they passed the second and third floors…

BANG!

The group paused and began to turn around to face the giant window beside them on the way up to the fourth floor.

"What was tha—oh, Yuri!" Yuya screamed, noticing his grip on Yuri's hand was gone. Yuya didn't even glimpse him before he'd disappeared into the darkness of the lower staircase. Rin tried to reach out to catch Yuri before he went crashing down.

"Yuri!" Rin missed and they listened in horror as he harshly rolled down the stairs and smashed his head into the tiled first floor at the bottom. Sayaka screamed and the remaining group rushed down the stairs to Yuri's side, Dennis charging out in front of them, nearly falling down himself in his own haste.

"Yu-Yuri!" Dennis cried, afraid to touch Yuri and try to shake him awake. If he had a concussion, that would be the worst thing to do.

Shun shined the flashlight on Yuri's face and noticed a trail of blood gushing from the back of his head, staining his pink hair red.

"Yuri!" Dennis didn't seem to know what else to say as he knelt down at his best friend's side.

"What happened?" Shun asked, glancing at Yuya "Weren't you holding his hand? How did he fall?"

"H-His grip slipped from my hand!" Yuya went pale "I don't know what happened!"

"Maybe the window banging startled him and he missed his footing on the stairs?" Rin looked up towards the window.

"Guys" Yuzu rested her head on Yuri's chest, then checked his wrist for a pulse "Yuri's not breathing…"

"What?!" Dennis began to tear up "S-Someone do something!"

"I don't think we can!" Sayaka began to panic "What are we supposed to do?!"

"Yuri's not dead!" Dennis insisted, the most emotional reaction he'd had all night "He can't be dead!"

"It was a long fall…" Shun examined the stairs "And he did hit his head pretty hard…"

He may not like Yuri all that much, but he'd never wished the guy dead. Especially not from a method like this.

Dennis burst into tears and hugged Yuri's body. "Yu-YURI!"

"I can't believe he's gone, just like that…" Sawatari breathed "But…was this an accident?"

He turned to Yuya and Rin, and suddenly all eyes were on them.

"You can't be serious!" Rin protested, seeming genuinely distressed "He _fell_!"

"I was holding onto his hand and he suddenly let go!" Yuya explained "We didn't push him!"

"Okay, okay!" Shun waved his hands to dissipate the tension "Let's not fight about this! We need to be careful. We…We can't do anything about Yuri. He's already gone. Let's hurry and get to Sawatari's room, okay?"

He uneasily patted Sayaka's shoulder and Sayaka wiped her eyes.

Dennis took one last long look at Yuri's still body before mutely getting to his feet.

The group decided to not hold hands anymore while making their way up the stairs. They tread very slowly, making sure not to accidentally miss a step.

They finally reached the top floor and rushed into Sawatari's room before anything else could follow them in. Yuzu walked in last, nearly slamming the door and locking it behind them.

"There" she huffed, breathing a sigh of relief "Now we don't have any reason to leave again."

Sawatari and Dennis collapsed onto the large bed and rested their eyes. Both were exhausted now, but neither wanted to fall asleep. The numbers in the group were dwindling, and one of them had to be the murderer. At worst, there were two killers among them.

Yuzu went to the bathroom, locking the door behind her. The rest of the group sat in silence for a few minutes, each contemplating the same thing. No one said anything for quite some time, until Sayaka finally spoke up after Yuzu exited the bathroom and Yuya went in.

"You realise, nearly all of us can be accused of being the murderer."

Everyone glanced over at her, but she didn't notice. She was lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling.

"I could be accused of killing Reiji whilst looking for Ruri; Yuya could have killed Ruri and Gongenzaka; Dennis could have killed Reira, Serena and Allen by poisoning the rice; Yuzu could have murdered Yuto in the dark; Rin could have thrown Yuri down the stairs; Shun could have murdered Sora whilst the lights were out and Sawatari could've messed with the breakers and attacked Yuri the first time… All of us could have killed or at least attacked any of our friends. Maybe we're all murderers…"

Rin frowned. "I hate to admit it, but…Sayaka's right."

Sawatari sat up, blue eyes staring blankly and alarming quiet. He couldn't help but feel if he hadn't invited everyone here to celebrate his birthday, then maybe this wouldn't have happened.

"I have to use the bathroom" He murmured. He walked over to the bathroom door knocked on it. "Are you finished in there, Yuya?"

"Er, yeah!" _Sniff_ "H-Hang on a sec!"

The toilet flushed and Yuya left, allowing Sawatari to enter, closing the door behind him. A latching sound was heard after that.

"We can't trust anyone…" Yuzu breathed "This is awful…"

"Twelve of our friends are dead" Yuya stared up at the ceiling as he perched on the edge of Sawatari's bed "Why is this even happening? What happened to enjoying a birthday and be-latted Christmas together?"

"I don't know, Yuya…" Shun sighed "I don't know…"

The group heard the toilet flush and the sink turn on from in the bathroom. A few seconds later, Sawatari walked out.

"Does anyone else have to go?" he asked.

Dennis sat up and spoke for the first time since Yuri had fallen. "I do."

He stood up from lying on the bed and entered the bathroom, closing the door but not locking it behind him.

"But I'm still confused about something" Sayaka continued "What was the crashing noise that we heard from Gongenzaka's room? The one that Yuto, Yuzu and Yuya investigated and got…Yuto killed."

"It was a vase that fell off of a high shelf" Yuzu explained.

"But how did it fall?" Sayaka asked "Was there someone else in the hallway?"

"We were all in that room together, I'm not sure if someone could've slipped out through the other room with all of us watching" Rin pointed out "But at the same time I doubt there was some way it fell on its own, unless someone had purposely put it in a position so it would fall on its own accord if a door slammed or people were walking around or something. It's possible."

"But if everyone else was in Gongenzaka's room or dead…" Yuya scratched his head "Then who killed Yuto? No one was there besides Yuzu and me, and surely one of us would've heard if either of us killed him."

"I just thought" Yuzu changed the subject "Why haven't you all beamed out? I mean, I know Rin and Sayaka and I can't, but for the rest of you, I thought your duel disks were designed to hop between the dimensions?"

"We tried" Sawatari told her, sitting on his bed next to Yuya "It was the first thing I did we I heard Ruri was dead. Something's jamming them, so we can't leave that way. It could be the killer."

"Or maybe Reiji did it to stop any Fusion rebels from attacking while we were here" Yuya suggested.

Sawatari shrugged. "Well, it doesn't matter. Since he's dead, it's not like he could shut off the jammer if he did set it off. And if it was the killers…" He flopped backwards so he was lying on the bed again with a small groan, like his head was hurting. "I understand our technology not working, but it's kinda weird the Fusionists' isn't either. That or they stayed for a reason."

"But if they did, it can't be because they're the murderers" Yuzu pointed out "They're all dead except for Dennis."

"Unless Serena accidently poisoned herself and Yuri's fall was an accident" Rin suggested.

"But if they're both dead, then the killings should stop, right?" Sayaka looked hopefully

"That can't be it" Shun frowned "They were in the same group when Sora died. Unless they had help."

Sayaka looked scared again. "But the only other Fusionist left is-"

Thunk!

"Huh?" Rin glanced over towards the bathroom door, as she was sitting on the dresser, therefore the closest to it "What was that?"

"Dennis?" Yuya stood up and walked over to the door. He knocked a few times. "Dennis? Are you okay in there?"

No response.

"Uh-oh" the rest of the group stood up as Yuya gasped. They all surrounded the door. "Dennis? What's wrong?"

Silence.

"Open the door!" Rin demanded.

"Are you sure?" Yuya grabbed the doorknob but didn't turn it, looking back at the group for confirmation.

"Yes!" Yuzu urged and Yuya twisted the knob, throwing the door open. He stumbled in, followed by Yuzu and the others and stared wide-eyed at what he saw.

Dennis was lying face down on the white tiled floor. There wasn't any blood to be seen.

"Dennis!" Yuya knelt down and rolled him over "Are you okay?!"

"Is he…dead?" Sayaka asked, not sure what was going on since she was at the back of the crowd.

"I don't…" Yuya trailed off, checking Dennis' pulse from his neck and then his wrist "N-Nothing!"

"But how?" Yuzu asked "What happened to him?"

"I-I'm not sure!" Yuya examined Dennis' body carefully, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. "I don't understand! He was alive just a minute ago!"

"This isn't making any sense" Rin remarked, pushing past Yuzu "Are you sure he's really dead?"

"Check for yourself!" Yuya complained, allowing Rin to check for any trace of a heartbeat from Dennis.

"…Yuya's right. He is dead…"

"What?!" Sawatari's eyes widened "How is that possible?!"

"Wait a minute" Rin bent over to inspect Dennis "His face is wet."

"Was he washing his face?" Yuya wondered aloud, checking the sink for soap. He spotted a blue bar of soap near the tap "The soap's wet."

"Don't touch it!" Yuzu yelled "Dennis' hands are wet, too! I…I think there's something deadly on that soap!"

The group gasped.

"Y'mean, like poison or something?" Yuya asked.

"Maybe" Shun agreed with Yuzu's theory "If Dennis washed his face, some may have gotten on his lips. And if he licked his lips, well…"

"But how did poison get on the soap?" Sayaka asked.

Then she, along with Rin and Shun turned to face Sawatari, Yuya and Yuzu, the only three people who entered the bathroom before Dennis.


	12. Wail

**Wail**

"W-What?" Sawatari gasped as everyone but Yuzu and Yuya stared at him.

"It wasn't me!" Yuzu held up her hands "I washed my hands with that soap! My hands could have poison on them!"

"Well, don't touch anything else!" Rin demanded "We'll have to go get soap from another room and wash it off!"

"But…Sawatari...Yuya…" Sayaka stared at them in alarm, clearly believing Yuzu.

Sawatari waved his hands frantically. "It wasn't me, I swear! I was the last one out! I could have poison on my hands!"

"Same here!" Yuya agreed, just as frantic.

"But this is _your_ room!" Rin pointed out to Sawatari "Maybe you poisoned it earlier and didn't wash your hands!"

"You could've invited us all here to die!" Sayaka squeaked.

"Hold on" Shun interjected "If Sawatari poisoned the soap earlier, why would he victimise himself by using the bathroom? Regardless, we would still be assuming that he was the murderer."

Mulling it over, Sayaka found herself agreeing with what Shun was saying. "Then maybe none of them poisoned it. Someone else did."

"But Sawatari's the one that suggested we hang out in his room" Yuzu pointed out "How could the murderer have known to poison the soap in Sawatari's room?"

"Gah!" Rin tugged on her hair with frustration "This is all so confusing!"

"Or maybe Yuya did it!" the jittering Sawatari suggested, his hands shaking "What's to say that he just didn't use the soap?"

"What?!" Yuya yelped "I can't believe you would say that!"

"Look, there's no way of knowing right now" Shun interjected, crossing his arms "For all we know, the murderer could have found a way to poison all the soap bars in the house."

"Seriously?!" Sawatari practically screeched, staring down at his hands "How am I supposed to wash my hands, then?!"

"Everything in this house could be dangerous" Yuzu added.

"Well, we were supposed to stay in here and not move" Shun sighed "But if those guys have poison on their hands and if they get nervous and bite their hands or touch something else…"

"Wah!" Sawatari held out his hands and tried not to cry "I have to get this off!"

"Me too!" Yuya agreed, holding out his hands as far out in front of him as he could "I'm not taking any chances!"

Yuzu agreed with them.

"There are new soap bars under every sink" Sayaka recalled. She glanced over at Dennis' body and the sink next to it "I wouldn't trust this sink, though…"

"Sora's room is next door" Yuzu suggested "I think each of us should take a bar of soap each, wash our hands as best as we can, and discard the soap when we're done."

"That sounds reasonable" Shun agreed "Let's go."

The group of six walked out of Sawatari's room and only had to take a few steps before arriving at Sora's room. Shun, Sayaka and Rin watched the three possible victims-to-be carefully so that they wouldn't touch anything.

Apparently Sora had been settled in there long enough to have a sense of humour. His room was at the top of the stairs, and he had pinned a yellow sticky note to the door with an arrow pointing down the corridor reading 'Old People Ahead!'. Sayaka turned the doorknob and they entered the room. Everyone made a face as Sayaka turned on the light, for there were clothes scattered everywhere.

"Seriously Sora?" Yuzu narrowed her eyes and wanted to facepalm, but stopped herself because, poison.

"He wasn't even in here that long and he made a mess already?" Sayaka stepped over the clothes to make her way to the bed.

"That's Sora for you" Yuya sighed "He's worse than me."

"Okay" Shun made his way to the bathroom and opened the door "Sawatari, you go first. If you didn't poison the soap, you'll definitely have it on your hands since you were last one out before Dennis. I'll help unwrap the soap for you, but we should keep the door open, just as a precaution."

"Yeah, I got it" Sawatari nodded.

Shun reached under the sink and grabbed three unopened bars of soap. He unwrapped one of them and placed it into Sawatari's hand. He turned on the sink and let Sawatari run his hands under it, spending over a minute making sure he thoroughly washed his hands.

"I don't think I've ever been so determined to get my hands clean in my life!"

Any other time that could have been taken as a joke, but Shun knew that Sawatari was being serious. He still looked panicked as he tossed the soap in the bin next to the sink and continued running his hands under the warm water.

"Okay" he breathed "I think I'm done."

Shun handed him a few papers towels that were under the sink as well, telling him it would be better safe than sorry to use those instead of a regular towel. He agreed as he wiped his hands off and threw them away.

"Okay, Yuya" Shun began unwrapping the next bar "You're up."

He handed the slightly Yuya the soap and he repeated the process just as Sawatari had. Yuzu was next, and she did the same. When she was done, Shun turned off the water and handed her the paper towels.

"All finished" she sighed as she and Shun walked out of the bathroom "I hope no one has to use the bathroom any time soon."

"I don't think any of us are going to _move_ for the next few hours" Shun decided, and everyone nodded in agreement.

Everyone sat still for an indeterminate amount of time. Yuya and Sayaka sat on the bed while Sawatari and Yuzu sat on the floor. Shun was leaning against the bathroom door while Rin leant against the main door, just in case anyone had the bright idea to try and get in or out of the room. Sayaka had the urge to clean the messy room, but she felt that anything she did could automatically make everyone accuse her of being the murderer so she chose not to. But when Yuzu suddenly got up and began picking up Sora's discarded clothes, she decided to hop up and help. Anything to help pass the time.

"Ugh…" Yuya finally spoke up after almost a half an hour of silence. "What time is it?"

Shun glanced at his watch. "Almost four-thirty in the morning."

"Really?" Yuya raised an eyebrow. "Man, time has been going so slow…"

"Happy Birthday, Sawatari" Sayaka tried to do anything to make the mood feel less heavy.

Suddenly, Rin's eyes widened and she jumped upright rather than leaning against the door.

"What's wrong?" Shun asked.

"Did you hear that?" Rin asked urgently.

"No?" Shun shook his head "What are you talking about?"

"I swear I just heard something in the hallway" Rin muttered, opening the door to look up and down the fourth floor corridor.

Yuya jumped off the bed to his feet.

"Hold on, Yuya" Yuzu warned "What are you going to do?"

"See if there's something out there" Yuya said, like he said he needed to use the bathroom or something equally benign.

"No, Yuya!" Shun commanded fiercely "Don't! We need to stay in here!"

"Just a second" Yuya muttered, disappearing out the door whilst Rin watched after him "Here, let me just peek out into the hallway and see if I see anything." There were a few seconds of footsteps before they stopped. "Is there anyone there?"

The answer was a loud cross between and shriek and a wail and Yuya springing back into the doorway, eyes wide with terror.

"What the?!" Shun gasped and flew towards the door.

Sayaka quickly jumped in his way.

"S-Shun, stop!" she threw her arms around him to prevent him from moving.

But Shun easily shoved the small girl aside and charged off down the hallway.

"Shun, stop!" Rin yelled as she ran after him.

"Dammit, Shun! Rin!" Sawatari shouted and he went after them.

His footsteps resonated down the hallway and he could hear Shun say something up ahead. Then suddenly, his voice went quiet. Sawatari quickened his pace and finally found Rin at the end of the hallway.

"What just happened?" She folded her arms.

"Just what I'd like to know" Sawatari did the same "Where's Shun?"

"I think he went downstairs" Rin pondered "I saw a shadow, pointed it out to him and he took off after it. He yelled out for Yuto."

"What?!" Sawatari couldn't believe what he was hearing "But Yuto is dead!"

"I know what you're thinking" Rin stared down the stairs where Shun had apparently gone "But it's not like we saw his body, did he? We only have Yuya and Yuzu's word for it."

Before she could say any more, Sayaka and Yuya were approaching them.

"Where's Shun?" Sayaka asked immediately.

Sawatari and Rin looked at them with a frown before the former asked:

"Wait a second, where's Yuzu?"

"What?" Sayaka spun around "She was right behind us, I thought. Where did she go?"

Everyone looked amongst themselves before rushing back to Sora's room. They gasped in shock when they saw Yuzu on the bed with her throat slashed. She was practically drenched in blood.

"O-Oh—!" Yuya threw his hands over his mouth and turned away.

Sawatari and Sayaka stood there with their mouths hung open.

"How did this happen?" Rin asked, and Sawatari clenched his fists.

"That's it!" he yelled, turning to Sayaka and Yuya "You three stayed behind while we chased after Shun, but now that Yuzu is dead, the killer has to be one of you two!"

"What?!" Sayaka yelped for the umpteenth time that night "I didn't do it! I walked out of the room first!"

"I was right behind you!" Yuya insisted "How could I have done it?! Who do you think I am, Yugo?! I'm not _that_ fast!"

"And if Shun saw someone while you guys were over here" Rin realised "That means that there really are two killers!"

"But I didn't do it!" Yuya began to tear up "I can't take this anymore!"

"One of you two is a murderer!" Sawatari pointed at Sayaka and Yuya, eyes filled with rage and hurt "Rin and I haven't done anything!"

"Neither did we!" Sayaka protested.

"Shun yelled for Yuto" Rin suggested "Maybe he faked his death and circled back to kill Yuzu while Sayaka and Yuya were out of the room?"

Sawatari gritted his teeth. He wasn't sure what to believe anymore.

"Yuto's alive?! B-But what about Shun?" Sayaka sniffled as if she was about to cry "Shouldn't we go find him?"

"But Yuto's out there killing everyone!" Yuya remarked "It's not safe!"

"Well, there's four of us and one of him" Rin pointed out "I'm pretty sure we should be able to fend him off. But Shun's by himself and you know he wouldn't lay a finger on Yuto. If we don't hurry and find him before Yuto does, he really will get himself killed."

Everyone looked at one another and decided that they should look for their latest in a string of leaders. They made their way down the stairs and did their best to ignore Yuri's body on the way.

"Where should we even begin looking?" Sayaka asked.

"We should probably just listen out for any noises" Sawatari suggested.

He noticed Yuya was shivering and decided to grip his arm to comfort him. Yuya jolted with shock, staring at Sawatari with eyes filled with horror.

"Over there!" Rin pointed across the foyer where it was still dark and they all broke into a run to where she was pointing, not far from the stairs. They started to slow down when they saw someone on the ground.

"Who is it?" Sayaka asked as they carefully approached them.

They all gasped and Rin cursed as she spotted who it was. Sayaka let a wail rip from her throat.

Shun was dead, lying on his back with a knife through his stomach.


	13. Last

**Last**

"S-Shun…!" Sayaka couldn't decide whether to stand still or kneel down next to her only remaining friend. It was already obvious that he was dead; no point in checking his pulse. But the bespectacled girl was still trembling. She had lost all of her friends in one night.

"Oh…oh god!" Yuya gasped "Guys, this means…that Yuto really is alive! And he's killed Yuzu and Gongenzaka and Sora! Everyone!"

"B-But where did he go? Did his body roll down the stairs or was he killed down here?" Rin asked, glancing down at Shun's body and then around the dim foyer "Are we in danger?"

"We should stick close together!" Sawatari decided, turning around and stepping back, backing into Sayaka "He can't catch us off guard if we're looking from all angles!"

"H-He's right!" Sayaka agreed, standing next to him. "Let's form a circle!"

The four of them stood in a circle facing outward so that they could see all around them.

"Well, what do we do now?" Sayaka asked, feeling completely uneasy "There may be four of us, but none of us have anything to fight him off with!"

"But is he really going to try to attack all four of us at once?" Sawatari continued glancing around.

"W-We have to stop him!" Yuya whimpered, trying to stay confident but he was shivering uncontrollably "I-I don't want to die!"

"The rest of our friends are gone…" Rin gritted her teeth, something that was becoming an unconscious habit "What the hell are we even going to do once we get out of here?!"

"We need to find a way to get there first!" Sawatari pointed out. Maybe the blizzard had calmed down enough to try the front door yards away? But even if it had, they could still be snowed in. Then maybe a window?

"I-I…" Yuya stuttered "I CAN'T TAKE THIS ANYMORE!"

He suddenly broke from the group and ran off down the hallway.

"No, Yuya, stop!" Rin yelled and began sprinting after him "Where are you going?!"

"I HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE!" he screamed as loud as possible.

Rin was running as fast as she could, but Yuya was more athletic than she was and was beyond determined to escape.

"Stop yelling! Yuto will hear you!" Rin called after him.

Sayaka and Sawatari could hear them, but they didn't know what to do. Do they run after them or find somewhere to hide? They hated to just leave Rin and Yuya to themselves, but the numbers were dwindling. Maybe it was time to begin fending for themselves.

"Sawatari" Sayaka looked at the older boy "W-What do we—?"

"AAAAHHHHHH!"

Sayaka was cut off by an ear-piercing scream from who was clearly Yuya. Sawatari hesitated, but Sayaka quickly made the decision for him.

"We have to see if he's okay!" Sayaka grabbed Sawatari's hand and began running toward the scream. "If Yuto is there, we need to stop him!"

"Like how?" Sawatari asked. He was shamefully beginning to panic. How could they fight Yuto without a weapon? Sure he could use his fists maybe – he'd been enrolled in self-defence classes prior to joining the Lancers. But if Yuto had a knife, they wouldn't do him any good.

"I don't know, but we'll think of—" Sayaka suddenly paused, slowing to a stop.

Sawatari followed her lead and noticed Rin standing there. Yuya was on the floor sitting up against the wall with bruises on his neck and his throat slashed. He was oddly wearing no shirt or jacket, but no one was really paying attention to details like that anymore.

"Rin!" Sayaka ran up to her "What happened?"

"I was chasing him, and…" Rin was shaking, running her hands through her sweat-soaked hair "He ran right into Yuto…I couldn't stop him!"

"Where did he go?" Sawatari asked, trying to remain calm.

"Back upstairs!" Rin pointed "We have to go after him!"

She started off down the hallway again, back towards the staircase.

"C'mon!" Sayaka began running after Rin, but paused when she noticed Sawatari didn't move "Sawatari, what're you doing?! Let's go!"

"O-Okay…" he shook his head and him and Sayaka began following Rin.

Sawatari began to sweat. Not because he was exhausted from running, but because of something else. He started to piece together all that had been happening, all throughout the house. So many things didn't make sense, but as he was running…he began having doubts. Doubts as to who they were really chasing.

And to who the murderer really was.

He glanced up and noticed that they were at the third floor hallway, next to Dennis' room where they must've left the door open. Rin slowed to a stop, and Sayaka and Sawatari followed suit.

"W-Where…" Rin struggled to catch her breath "Where the hell did he go?"

"What do we do now?!" Sayaka huffed, exhausted.

"I don't know" Rin looked around "I would say let's keep going, but maybe we should find a weapon or something first."

"Yeah, that would be a good idea" Sayaka nodded and glanced at Sawatari, who looked completely pale. He wasn't even looking towards her or Rin. "Sawatari, are you alright?"

Sawatari stared into the room, as the door was wide open. "Sayaka…"

"What?" she asked, completely confused.

"Do you noticed something odd?" Sawatari's voice was completely deadpan.

Sayaka blinked up at him. "What is it?"

"…What's missing?"

Sayaka stared into Dennis' room, where Sawatari's gaze was focused, for a long time before she realised what Sawatari was referring to. "Didn't we find Yugo here? Where's his bod—?"

She was suddenly cut off and Sawatari spun around.

"Saya—?" he paused, his breath literally escaping him.

Sayaka was wide-eyed and blood was dripping from her mouth.

"S-Sawatari!" she coughed up a little more blood and fell forward, hitting the ground hard.

Sawatari watched her body fall as he noticed the bloody stab wound in her back. He slowly glanced up, his eyes growing wider as he spotted who had just stabbed the young girl.

"Hello, Sawatari. So you were the last survivor, huh? Gotta say, I didn't think it would be you, no offence. I hope you're proud of yourself. Your prize is living just a little bit longer for us to tell you why we decided to murder everyone!"

They were wrong. They were all so wrong. Someone _had_ faked their death. But it wasn't Yuto. It was a person everyone had considered to be the murderer at one point or another, but had been forgiven when he appeared to have the ultimate alibi.

Yugo twirled the bloody knife in one hand while he brushed some stray spikes of hair out of his eyes with the other. Rin stood just behind him with a proud little smile on her face.


	14. How

**How**

Sawatari fell to the floor, backing up as far as he could into the wall. Sayaka was dead in front of him, and the rest of his friends were also dead, scattered about the mansion. But he couldn't focus on that. He was staring in horror at Yugo - somehow alive and without any slashes or bruises on his neck - and Rin, his mind reeling. How could they do this? Why did they do this? Did he really only have a few more minutes to live before they decided to kill him?

He thought about getting up and running, running as fast as he could. But he knew Yugo was faster than him - and where would he run? The blizzard was still as horrendous as ever. Even if he found his way outside, he would probably end up freezing to death before he reached safety.

Instead, his body was paralysed. He couldn't move even if he wanted to. He was the last one alive. Even if they killed him, he had to know why they did this.

"Come on, Shingo!" Yugo chuckled, and Sawatari's blood ran cold "At least look a little more excited to see me!"

He spun the knife between his fingers again, Sayaka's blood splattering onto Sawatari's cheeks. He gritted his teeth, but not in anger. He didn't even know which emotion to feel. Sadness? Agony? Fear? Maybe all of them.

Tears rolled down from Sawatari's eyes, salty residue mixing in with blood. He couldn't bee bothered to wipe them away; his arms were numb anyway.

He glanced at Rin, now smirking as Yugo continued to chuckle. Sawatari had so many things he wanted to say - possibly yell if anything - but he could only manage to barely squeak out the first words that came to his mind.

"H-How … How did…how are you still alive…Yugo?"

"Oh, skipping ahead, are we?" he grinned "No no no. We can't be having that. I'm illiterate and even I know all adventures must start at the beginning, not halfway through."

Yugo's smirk appeared to widen and Sawatari wondered how that was even possible. Yugo looked like a demented clown with that freaky smile. He was psychotic, he had to be.

"W-Why…" Sawatari barely managed to speak "Why did…you do…this…?"

"Would you really like to know? Why don't I tell you…" He twirled the knife between his fingers once more before training his eyes back onto Sawatari.

"But first, let's start with how we pulled all of this off. Killing off that many people took a lot more planning than we thought. We sure had to improvise some. Didn't we, Rin?" he looked over to his girlfriend, who nodded and leaned against the wall, clearly willing to let Yugo take the reins for this part.

"Okay, so Ruri was our first victim, right?" Yugo asked Rin like he seriously had no clue.

Sawatari furrowed his eyebrows. He knew that Yugo knew the exact order in which they killed his friends and Sawatari despised how much he was enjoying explaining how he did it.

"I took care of her" Yugo announced, shrugging his shoulders "We were all heading back to our rooms, but she had lingered in her room for a while. While walking with Serena and Sayaka, she said she had to change jacket or something. I overheard and, well, may as well set the ball rolling at the first opportunity. So when you said you were going to the bathroom, I told you I would catch up with you later. I walked into her room and she told me she was planning to get Reira and Reiji. But before she had a chance to leave, I slashed her in the back with a knife I'd picked up at dinner. Oh, the kill was thrilling!"

He clenched his free fist in front of him, looking overly excited. Sawatari was extremely disgusted. He could still picture Yugo walking away down the corridor earlier that night, telling him he would go ahead, Sawatari could catch up later – the party couldn't start without him after all, he was the Birthday Boy! If only he'd had some excuse to stop him – maybe he could've saved Ruri's life.

"But I wasn't expecting Yuya to walk by and witness the whole thing" Yugo bit the inside of his mouth, now looking awkward "I had to threaten him with the lives of the rest of you if he so much as thought of telling anybody. Which is why he didn't speak once we came back downstairs. I had to tell Rin what happened." He looked over his shoulder at his girlfriend. "Sorry about that by the way."

Rin shrugged indifferently.

"So Yuya knew the whole time that the two of you were the killers!" Sawatari half-gasped "Then why didn't you just kill him then?!"

"Because we were the only ones who still hadn't returned to the main room besides Reiji, who everyone knew was with Reira the whole time" Yugo frowned at him as if Sawatari was so stupid Yugo couldn't comprehend it "If you guys would have discovered both Ruri and Yuya's bodies, with me being the last one to enter the room, I would have been instantly accused."

Sawatari suddenly remembered the chaos that followed the discovering of Ruri's body and his frantic attempts to call the police, then escape via his duel disk. "Wait, what about the police? And my parents? Why couldn't I get a hold of anyone? The phones rang, so it's not like the connection was cut off or busy. That meant that no one was answering!"

"Oh, that?" Rin waved her hand "I redirected the phone numbers of the police station and your parents to my own phone, which is in my bag in my room on silent."

"What?" Sawatari stared at her "H-How?"

"Hey, I managed to build two Duel Runners out of scrap with only this lug for help. Redirecting a phone number? Absolute piece of cake in comparison" Rin smirked at her accomplishment.

"Does that mean you set up the jammer to stop us from escaping too?" Sawatari lowered his head as he continued silently crying. The tears just wouldn't stop every time he looked at Sayaka's horror-struck face.

Rin clapped with a grin and Sawatari officially classified her as crazy as Yugo. "Very good questions, Sawatari! It's just too bad you weren't able to play detective a little sooner. Maybe could have saved some lives."

Sawatari tried to not let that get to him. He wasn't as smart as a lot of people he knew like Reiji or Yuto, and this revelation may have blown their minds as much as it did his.

"Okay, let's see, who's next?" Yugo put a finger to his forehead in a thoughtful pose "Ah! Reiji! Yes, we figured he had to go right at the start. He would've figured us out before we even got to murder Number Three."

"I'm the one that took care him" Rin took over for him "We'd split up. I supposed to take care of Reira, Yugo Reiji. Simultaneously get rid of them both. Yugo shook off his tail of Yuto, and Sayaka fell asleep, so I could escape. But I wasn't expecting Reiji to still be in there. We thought he would have left by then. He was suspicious immediately. So he became my target instead. A quick slash to the back. And with me leaving Reira alive, he would have been the obvious suspect."

"But Reira wouldn't have been suspected of killing Ruri" Sawatari pointed out.

"We knew at some point the thought of two killers would have been brought up eventually" Rin shrugged "We had to continue trading off and trying to focus the blame on others before Yugo and I could have been thought up as suspects. Which is why when Sayaka started running around on her own looking for Ruri, and Yuto wanted to check on Reiji and Reira, they could have easily been seen as suspects as well."

Sawatari couldn't believe they could have let Reira, Sayaka and Yuto of all people become suspects. But he also was still trying to wrap his head around the thought of Yugo and Rin killing everyone off. He didn't think _any_ of his friends were capable of something like this.

"Then Gongenzaka was next" Yugo smiled "Oh, he was the most fun. After Rin told me what happened, instead of using the bathroom like I told Yuto I was doing, I made my way back to the main room and found Yuya and Gongenzaka were the only ones left. I rushed in and killed Gongenzaka first. Yuya begged me not to kill him. He tried to stop Gongenzaka from bleeding out, but he was already a goner, I got to him too many times. Yuya couldn't believe it. I had lied to him, after all."

Yugo started laughed and Sawatari felt his stomach churn.

"But what about Yuya?" He asked. He still couldn't understand how Yuya could have lasted as long as he did after witnessing two murders, one of his best friend.

"Easy" Yugo shrugged "I killed him."

Sawatari's eyes bugged out. How was that possible? Until about a minute ago, Yuya was alive! He'd run down the ground floor corridor! Yugo couldn't have killed him before then!

"I know exactly what you're thinking, Sawatari" Yugo jabbed into his thoughts "And yes, I did kill Yuya after murdering Gongenzaka. I had to; he had seen too much for him to keep it a secret anymore, he would have blabbed at some point or other. I strangled him, so he left no blood; he was too terrified to fight back. But I thought up this brilliant plan to keep Yuya 'alive' and get any possible thoughts of me being a suspect out of people's heads. I faked my death and posed as Yuya."

Sawatari couldn't believe how nobody had noticed. So after discovering that Gongenzaka was dead, any time they saw Yuya…it was Yugo the whole time?!

But how? Sure they had the same facial structure – when Sawatari had first truly come face to face with Yugo after their duel in Synchro, he'd remarked upon that. But there were apparent differences as well. Yuya's red eyes sucked you in and then spun you back out again every time you looked into them whilst Yugo's baby-blue ones belonged on a puppy. Or at least, they had before. They looked more like they belonged on Hannibal Lecter or Keyser Söze now.

"Yeah, I know. How could he have possible pulled it off?" Yugo crouched down and leant forward, so his face was just inches from Sawatari's "You wanna see?"

Sawatari didn't want to just as much as he _did_ want to. But his feelings on the matter were regardless, since he was sure Yugo was going to show him anyway.

Yugo removed something from his back pocket. It appeared to be a very thin plastic tub of some kind, it's tiny volume filled with liquid. Sawatari finally got a break from the slasher grin as Yugo ducked his head, his hair hiding his eyes, and he cracked open the tub, a few drops of liquid splashing onto the blood-stained carpet of Sawatari's home. He appeared to pick something very thin up from the tub with his finger and…guide it towards his face?

Yugo groaned as if in pain and Sawatari honestly didn't know whether he should be pleased with that or not.

"Be careful" Rin warned him, a worried frown gracing her features. Sawatari found her easier to look at than her boyfriend. She at least seemed to know the direction in which reality was.

"I know! I know! I'm fine!" Yugo insisted before flicking his head up for Sawatari to see "Ta da!"

One baby-blue eye still stared at him, but the other was now Yuya's soul-sucking red.

Sawatari's heart sunk. Coloured lenses, of course. He was stupid not to think of that first. Those coloured lenses and a wig, a change of clothes and a bit of acting; not even Yuzu spotted the difference in her childhood friend.

"See, it's not all that hard to pretend to be someone else" Yugo told him, taking out the coloured lens, putting it back in its tub with its partner and the tub back in his pocket. "I swapped my clothes with Yuya's, put in the lenses and the wig; that was all that was necessary. We're lookalikes after all. I was perfectly prepared to pretend to be Yuto or Yuri instead. Rin had her disguises – we had it all worked out in case anyone got close to guessing. When Rin found 'my' body, I pretended to kneel behind her and weep. I told her what had happened, and we made our way from there."

Sawatari gritted his teeth. Yugo was the perfect actor. There was no way anybody could've seen that coming.

"As for Yuya's body, I'll explain that in a little bit" Yugo continued "Once we regrouped with everyone in the living room, Rin made it apparent that it was urgent that we find 'me'. So when you came up with the idea to separate us with cards, we had to go along with it and hope that we could find a way to kill more people whilst grouped together."

"The groups ended up better than we thought" Rin added on "Not only were 'Yuya' and I separated, but most of the groups of best friends were separated as well, just in case anyone made the assumption that two close friends were working together."

"Which is how killing Sora worked out perfectly!" Yugo cheered "The power went off at just the right moment! It couldn't have gone any better! Well, it could've. I missed Yuto in the dark, clipped Yuri instead. God he was such a bitch about it – wish I'd hit his lungs instead. Thankfully no one noticed."

"What?" Sawatari was confused "You mean; the power wasn't meant to go off at any particular point in time?"

"Nope!" Rin shook her head "I set that up in the beginning in the hopes that it would help us with something later on down the line, in case we were having trouble killing people off. But it ended up working to our best advantage. I killed Sora and Yugo almost got Yuto. We basically just went after whoever we could get to; it didn't really matter who."

Sawatari finally moved his hands in order to clench them tightly. At that moment, he could have been the one to die…

"And from then, Sayaka and Yuto began thinking of the possibility of you being the killer since you were the one that thought of grouping us by the deck of cards!" Yugo recalled with a huge grin "Oh, it was great! Everyone was losing their minds! Panicking and thrashing about like rats in a barrel with no escape!"

Sawatari remembered clearly the horror of being accused by people he thought were his best friends. The one person everyone should have been accusing faked his death from the beginning.

"When we made our way to the kitchen, Rin and I took that chance to swipe some more knives, since Rin didn't have a weapon anymore, with it being stuck in Sora's spine and all" Yugo explained "We also took that time to start a dispute over who could be the killer. With you and Yuya and Sayaka seeming like the most likely to have murdered everyone, we were keeping the accusations off of Rin. Of course, someone would have possibly wondered about Rin's innocence after a while, so we couldn't ignore accusing her at least for a little bit. If not everyone had been accused at some point, she could've ended up being the most likely suspect."

Which is why they'd gotten involved in the argument in kitchen. Sawatari began to realise that the only time Rin had really been accused of being the killer, beyond Yuri's 'accident', was when 'Yuya' said something about it. Yugo had been suspected in his absence but was obviously off the hook once they found his 'body'.

"Then came time for some of the group to get some sleep" Yugo raised his hand to examine some of Sayaka's blood on his fingers "I figured that would happen at some point, and Rin and I knew that there was no way that everyone was going to sleep at once. And since we were all going to stay together at this point, we were going to have to get creative. Then when Dennis suggested going to his room, I knew we were doing good." Yugo snapped his fingers.

Dennis' room… Sawatari glanced over at it. That was where everyone discovered Yugo's 'body'.

"I'm sure you're just dying to know how you guys managed to discover my body when I was right next to you the whole time, right?!" Yugo laughed "Get it?! Dying?! Ha ha!"

Sawatari cringed. Yugo was insane.

"Yugo, I told you, stay focused" Rin thankfully hurried things along.

Yugo pouted at her disappointedly, but continued anyway.

"Anyway, after I killed Yuya, I dumped him in Dennis' room, what with him being grouped with Yuri so I knew he wouldn't be in there, and dressed him in my clothes, put a wig like my hair on him. Nobody suspected a thing! The reason why you guys didn't find 'my' body the first time you searched Dennis' room is because I hid Yuya's body deep in the wardrobe, and made sure only myself searched it. When the search party left, I doubled back and pulled Yuya's body out in the middle of the floor. I was planning to drag it out into the corridor later, but Dennis saved me the work by trying to be helpful. After that, once we went into Gongenzaka's room, we had to find a way to lure out more people to kill. As long as we remained in place in that room, there was no way that we could kill anyone else. So when we made our way to Gongenzaka's room I grabbed hold of that shelf, pulled myself up and moved a vase so it was in danger of falling if everyone started moving around enough. Sure enough, it fell. Don't you remember the crash that led Yuto, Yuzu and I to leave the room to check it out? It got Yuto killed! Yuri wanted to tag along, which would've been fun, but Yuto said he had to stay. Shame – he was the one I was looking forward to."

"But…the lights switched off again" Sawatari remembered everyone freaking out while they were in still in Gongenzaka's room. But this time the generator hadn't switched back on. "How did that happen?"

Yugo looked at Rin in confusion. Rin, who also looked confused, shrugged.

"I guess the blizzard must have just been on our side" she decided.

Yugo also shrugged, accepting this answer. Sawatari found this a little hard to believe, but Rin and Yugo both looked genuinely confused. Maybe they'd planned to kill everyone with the lights on, or had another plan that failed.

"Yuzu had her stupid flashlight, but I was still able to slip a knife into Yuto's neck" Yugo mimicked the motion of stabbing him "It was easy to convince Yuzu that someone else was in the hallway with us, so all we had to do was run back to Gongenzaka's room."

"Next…was the kitchen" Rin mentioned.

"Ah, yes! The poisonings!" Yugo grinned "I wasn't expecting to use the poison; it's not as fun as stabbing people."

Sawatari cringed again. How could Yugo have been able to hide all this time that he was a flipping psychopath?! His excitement at killing people was beyond disturbing!

"But when Dennis and you got hungry, we figured we needed to start dwindling the numbers. There were still lots of people left to kill and it was taking just a little more time than we had thought."

"Yugo, you have to admit that you did want to take your time" Rin pointed out.

"Yeah" Yugo shrugged "But it would have been morning soon and I wasn't sure if someone would be coming to check on us, making sure the teenagers hadn't trashed the house overnight and all. But moving on," he waved his hand as he continued. "Rin mentioned checking for silverware, in which Allen said something about a strip search. If anyone actually went with it, we could have easily slipped them somewhere inconspicuously so that we couldn't have been suspected. And Rin could have just pretended to search me so that no one could tell it was really me. But with the boys being embarrassed about the girls being searched, no one went with it anyway."

"We had poison ready in case we absolutely needed to use it" Rin pulled a small bottle containing a white liquid out of her shorts' pocket. "It didn't matter who we killed as long as we had killed a few people."

"Wait…" Sawatari thought for a second "The poison wasn't in the food… You were the one that handled the silverware!"

"That's right!" Rin chuckled "I poisoned three of the forks and set the table with those poisoned forks in three random places. We just made sure not to sit in those spots and let the poison do its job."

"In which Reira, Serena and Allen got one of the forks" Sawatari recalled.

"Yep!" Yugo grinned "And with three people handling the food and another three handling the utensils, it was difficult to tell where the poison came from."

Sawatari sat for a moment, trying to remember what came next. His eyes widened. "Yuri."

"Oh, skipping ahead aren't we?" Rin waggled her finger "Someone wants to die quickly, huh?"

"No" Sawatari said, shaking his head frantically "But I just now realised that when we left the kitchen to go to my room, Yuri fell down the stairs and bashed his head. But he didn't fall at all, did he?" He glared at Yugo. "You pushed him, didn't you?" He then looked at Rin. "At least, one of you did. You were both walking next to him."

"Yuri?" Rin's face scrunched up and she shook her head "No, that was an accident."

"Shame as well, Yuri's was the one I was most looking forward to" Yugo commented bitterly.

Sawatari didn't believe them for a second, especially when they traded some kind of knowing glance. Maybe Yuri had figured it out, from one psychopath to another, and one of them was quick to silence him without consulting the other beforehand. They probably didn't want to admit to diverting from their original, meticulous plan in front of him. Clearly something had gone wrong on those stairs that had resulted on Yuri being thrown down them.

"Anyway, then it was finally my turn to get someone!" Yugo threw his fist into the air in joy "So when we got to your room, who poisoned the bar of soap that killed Dennis?" He pointed at himself, as if Sawatari seriously had no clue who had done it. "Everyone had been nervous, so I figured if I poisoned the soap someone would eventually bite their nails or something. I hadn't expected Dennis to wash his whole face and ingest some of it immediately, so that was a plus. But then it quickly became a minus because I had gone into the bathroom before he did. My only saving grace was that Yuzu and you had gone in there as well, plus it was your room."

Sawatari knew he was right to accuse 'Yuya' of poisoning the soap. But since both he and Yuzu had been in there too, there was no way of proving it. Everyone had been accusing everyone else, so his words would have just sounded like speculation and trying to blame someone else for something he'd done.

"After moving to Sora's room for us to wash our hands, we had to get creative again" Rin went on "So I acted like I heard something in the hallway."

"Which urged me to peek my head out" Yugo added, holding his hand over his eyes as if searching for something.

Sawatari's eyes widened. "It was you who screamed!"

Yugo just smiled at him innocently, a look that definitely no longer suited him after what Sawatari had just heard.

"So that lead Shun out the door" Rin picked up from there "When I chased after him I took that moment to blindside him, kill him and throw his body down the stairs, claiming that it had been Yuto that had really lured him away and murdered him."

"And while you and Sayaka were chasing them, I quickly lunged at Yuzu and killed her – sweet revenge after all those damn fans. I mean, really, where did she get the idea she could go around slapping guys around with paper fans anyway? I'm pretty sure that stuff's illegal" Yugo pondered, as if he had forgotten his own extracurricular activity of murder was also illegal. "At that point, there were very few people left. If anyone accused me, Rin and I could just quickly kill the rest of you guys off. But we got lucky when you guys fell for the Yuto-faked-his-death-plot."

"I mentioned that maybe Yuto backtracked and killed Yuzu. But I suggested we all search for Shun and Yugo here pretended to freak out at Shun's body. And since 'Yuya' took off, you and Sayaka waited around whilst I chased after him before 'Yuto' got to him" Rin took over for a little bit, sharing the storytelling.

"But in truth, I was just doubling back and pulling Yuya's body from Dennis' room and planting it in the hallway for you guys to discover, although all along it would've been the second time you had seen it" Yugo explained "I didn't have time to change all his clothes again, plus there were the bruises on his neck, so I left him without his shirt and jacket and stuff, got rid of the wig and slit his throat and hoped you guys would be too freaked to notice."

The rest all came to Sawatari without help. He closed his eyes tightly, trying to forget that moment when Sayaka's sentence was cut off by a knife in her back. He couldn't believe he was still crying; he figured his tears would have finally dried up by now.

"And that's that!" Yugo gave a mock bow "Pretty amazing, huh?!"

"I'll say, we're good for first-timers, hey Yugo" Rin smirked, walking over and ruffling her partner-in-crime's hair, making Yugo grin with delight.

Sawatari sat for a minute before speaking up. They still hadn't answered the most obvious question.

"…Why…? Why would you…do this… What did everyone do to you to deserve this…? Sayaka? Yuya? Gongenzaka? Reira? I don't understand… I DON'T GET IT!"

He smashed his hand into the floor as hard as he could, not caring how badly it hurt. It would never feel as bad as all of his friends felt as they were being murdered.

Yugo smirked as he stepped forward and knelt in front of Sawatari, who tried to scoot back but the wall was preventing him from doing so. Rin then came up behind her companion.

"You don't know what it's like, do you Sawatari? Growing up in such a fancy house, Daddy's boy, getting anything you could possibly imagine. You don't know what it's like to grow on the streets of a place like The City – kill or be killed. You do what it takes to survive. Eventually that's all you find yourselves living for – that rush of adrenaline as you go in for the kill. Even when circumstances change and you don't have to kill anymore, your hands still tremble for that rush. That's what being alive is really like, Sawatari Shingo."

"Of course, you don't expect a privileged Standard like you to understand for one second" Rin added, just as Sawatari turned to her for a true explanation.

"Like rats in a barrel, Sawatari Shingo" Yugo told him, and Sawatari swore Yugo was close enough to feel the puffs of breath on his face "Eat or be eaten."

He made it sound like it was such a simple explanation. There clearly wasn't one though. Yugo and Rin were just plain psychopaths, worse than Yuri or Leo Akaba or anyone they'd ever been confronted with. And they'd hid it so well too. Sawatari wouldn't have thought for a second they'd even _imagine_ doing something like this.

"Here" Yugo turned around to find Rin handing him a clean butcher's knife. "He sat through our story. Least we could do is kill him with a clean instrument."

Yugo snatched the knife from her and spun back around to face Sawatari.

"Thanks" Yugo smiled wickedly, probably the most demented Sawatari had ever seen him "Are you ready to die?"

Sawatari didn't want to die. But when he actually thought about it, even if he had a way out of this mess, would he really want to live? All of his friends were dead. No more entertainment duelling with Yuya. No more teasing Yuzu. No more being shouted at by Shun. No more doodling with Reira. No more trying jokingly trying to recreate Dennis' accent with Serena as Gongenzaka told them off for it. No more screaming at Yugo with Rin for setting stuff on fire.

No more. Ever.

And if he were to make it out of this alive, could he ever trust anybody again?

"J-Just kill…me…" Sawatari gasped for air.

Yugo blinked in confusion, his smirk dropping. "What?"

"JUST KILL ME ALREADY!" Sawatari screamed in his face.

"Just kill him, Yugo!" Rin shouted "Shut him up!"

"Fine!"

Yugo tightly gripped Sawatari's throat to throw him to the ground face first. He was on his stomach, his head turned to face the dead Sayaka next to him. Yugo was sitting on his lower back, holding Sawatari's head still with his hand.

"Time to end this!" he shouted as he gripped the knife tightly in his hand.

Time seemed to move in slow motion as Sawatari stared at Sayaka, his short friendship with her flashing through his mind. His friendship with Yuya. With Yuzu. With Reiji. With Reira. With Gongenzaka. With Serena. With Yuri. With Sora. With Dennis. With Shun. With Allen. With Yuto. With Ruri. Even good times he had had with Yugo and Rin. He smiled to Sayaka.

' _I'll see you and all of our friends in a minute, Sayaka_ ' he thought ' _And let's just hope that Yugo and Rin don't get too close to anyone else so that this doesn't ever happen again. And hopefully, they'll never find us...wherever we're going._ '

* * *

 **And there it is! This 30,000 word behemoth of a story is finally over! Remind me to stick to one-shot comedies after this!**

 **But finally it's over! My notes keeping track of who killed who, when and where are so scribbled they're destined for the recycling pile. I guess that's what I get for changing the murderers three times!**

 **So for everyone out there who's thinking "What? Yugo and Rin, seriously?", allow me to explain. Whilst going through my list and trying to decide who was ultimately behind it all, I decided someone from Fusion or Xyz would be too predictable. So I thought some more and it came to me: "How come literally everyone in Synchro is crazy except for Yugo and Rin apparently?" (And I suppose Crow too, but this story was complicated enough without _him_ as well) And considering the Synchro dimension's reaction to Dennis literally being blasted by a laser from space, severely injuring him, they're pretty immune to acts of violence as well. You can't tell me that in a world like that, as well as a situation that involved 99% of the population fighting for 1% of the resources, that Rin and Yugo didn't grow up seeing death and violence as a part of everyday life. And that's when the idea of them having killed before and feeling the rush to do it again, seeing Sawatari's birthday party as the perfect place to settle their bloodlust, was born. Though I'm still not happy with how Yugo explained it. I probably should have had Rin do it, but it's too late to change it now I suppose.**

 **As for Sawatari being the last to survive, well...no, I have no explanation for that. But I blinked and suddenly he and Sayaka were the last ones left. And since it was his party, I guess I kinda liked him getting the explanation better.**

 **Thank you all for having read this story, especially to those few who reviewed (very sorry about Yuto and Reira, but they were all going to go at some point), and I hope you'll stick around to see me write more Arc-V stories in the future. Preferably with less murder involved.**


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